The Entertainer
by phantomwriter05
Summary: Living a directionless Vagabond existance under the guidance of his uncle, John Reese meets a girl in the woods one morning. What follows will unearth secrets that will shake John and the country to the brink. TSCC/The Hunger Games
1. Chapter 1

_Ladies, Gentlemen … Kaotic. Welcome to the great Experiment!_

_Shout out too SarahWannabe, or Girlscoutsniper (However you know her as) for helping me with this as a Beta and Book reader. _

_All Events take place AU after the ending of "The Hunger Games" Movie._

_**Prologue: Allentown**_

There was a gentle breeze that selected the least-steady branches of the thick foliage-covered hills. The hills sat just outside the perimeter fence that barred off the fringes of District Twelve from the wild unknown that lay beyond the outer rim territory of the great and powerful Government of Panem -*un*affectionately known merrily as "The Capitol".

The truth was that John Reese, at the ripe age of fifteen, didn't exactly know what the official name of that government really was. He could ask his uncle again, but Derek never cared to answer really. There was a shrug one day, a gruff grunt the next, and on his worst days "Who gives a damn …" So John really didn't care to know. Maybe being known only as The Capitol was enough for _those_ people. Maybe it was enough for the people here … in District Twelve.

Moving low across the meadow of wild flowers that had unnaturally grown past the normal height of most wildflowers, John often found the weirdest times to think about these mundane things. This was an awkward time mostly because "The Peacekeepers", or "Jack booted thugs" as Derek liked to call them, were thick as fleas today.

Reaping day …

Maybe not the best time to go sneaking across boundaries no one is allowed to cross, especially when Peacekeepers are flown in from other garrisons. It's to keep extra watch over the more fringe districts like Ten, Eleven, and Twelve. Sure, the local boys from the 32nd might overlook a hunter going into the frontier for game, as long as you gave them a "bite" of what you got. Seeing as how food runs scarce for both citizen and thug alike, it was really a catch 22 for a lawman. You've sworn an oath to protect the law and "Safe guard the future", but when there's fresh meat to be had, temporary memory loss is a common occurrence. But if you get zealous rookies right out of the Academy, or units from some of the inner districts … well you're sure to get shot.

Despite the risk, the one upside was that it really was a beautiful morning. The soft breeze off the mountains was like a mother's caress through his hair - not that he knew what that was like. The air was the right kind of cool, the kind that made his father's old dark brown leather field jacket feel snug. If he were to remove it, his skin would get all fresh, like taking a cool drink of water after a hard day in District Ten. Whenever John thought about it, he had to scoff at the irony of it all.

"The day you decide to grace us with some great weather is today, of all days," the youth muttered to the sky. John was never quite sure who he was talking to when he talked to the sky. Sometimes it was just to say stuff and not look like a complete loon, and other times he thought it might be him talking to his father.

No, he was pretty sure he was talking to his father "The Hero without fear". Kyle Reese was an eighteen year old boy when he died in the arena of the 108th annual Hunger Games. To this day it is still considered one of the most popular and famous matches of all time.

In all honesty, though he was renowned far and wide for his bravery, John's father placed third out of twenty four. The other two were career tributes from the inner districts- a boy from District Two, Arnold something … most people from the inner districts didn't have last names, the other and victor that year was a sixteen year old girl from District One, her name was Sarah.

John had always been fascinated with Sarah, like most people in Panem. She was quite a beauty, long mane of luxurious black curls, haunting green eyes, and milky skin. John would stare at her a lot when he was younger, she used to be a commentator with Flickerman, and though his uncle never let him watch the games out of "principle", John never missed Sarah when she came on. There was something in her eyes, this haunted sadness that made her even more beautiful. A difference from the younger, bright eyed, girl flirting with an eerily unchanged Ceasar Flickerman during her games interview.

But Derek hated her, so John never got to see her much. John's love for her was a secret one, in the Reese household you did not watch the games, and you did not have anything but spite for "The Rose of District One", but Derek had his reasons.

From how it was told to John, his father had been in an alliance with Sarah throughout most of the game. Together they had avoided many disasters, and saved each other's lives. In the end their antagonist was Arnold from District Two. He had been a ruthless career that had killed at least seventy-five percent of the tributes in the first four days. When their backs were against the wall, his father took a sword and went after the Career, while protecting a wounded Sarah. Suddenly, the screens went blank, for three days no one knew what had happened. When they returned Arnold was gone, and John's father was dead. Only Sarah remained, clinging to life, despite a leg rotting with infection.

To John that sounded pretty anti-Climatic, three days without knowledge? Why would anyone think that was great? But he guessed that whatever happened in there, it didn't top people's imaginations about what really happened.

"_Yo' daddy is one of the bravest men whoever competed," _some would say. But John never knew why … sometimes when he would sit and watch Ceasar Flickerman's pregame specials they would show past games. "The Duel in the Desert" or "The Terror of the Point" but the 108th never was shown. "You had to be there," the old men would say in the street. John always wanted to say "You weren't … if you had my old man would still be here wouldn't he?" but he would just nod.

The woods rustled with the breeze, this would make hunting hard today, the youth thought slipping into the shadow of the forest and out of the open meadow between the woods and the fence. To most people it would seem suicidal to even attempt to get in here over open ground. But the difference was that most people hadn't been taught how to work their way around traps like that.

John never knew his mother, and till this day didn't know anything about her. Kyle Reese had no sweethearts that anyone knew about, and his uncle refused to talk about it otherwise. It left John to be raised by Derek Thomas Reese, former mentor of District Twelve and winner of the 100th Hunger Games. Most importantly, not just any Hunger Games … but the fourth Quarter Quell. So thrust with a baby boy to raise, Derek taught John the only things he knew- how to survive, how to fight, and how to be a soldier.

They actually didn't live in District Twelve, in fact they didn't actually live anywhere. Out of the necessity of demons in his uncle's soul, they travel from district to district. Usually the Capitol didn't allow this, however Derek was a winner and a rich man, so he was allotted special privileges. But once a year, since John was twelve, they returned to their home district so that he could register for the games.

So for the last three years, on this day, John found himself in these woods, hunting for dinner tonight, because when he would sit at the table of his grandmother's old childhood house in the poorest area of District Twelve known as "The Seam" his uncle would be beyond shitfaced to provide dinner. He'll be drinking to celebrate John being spared from the fight, drinking to mourn the kids who will fight and die in four weeks, drinking to forget the boys and girls he killed many years ago, and drinking to fill the emptiness in his soul over the death of his family. To this day many people didn't know what happened to Kyle Reese, Arnold, nor Sarah … but there was someone John was convinced knew what happened … but he'd never be drunk enough to tell his nephew the story.

Three paces, a quarter mile from the spot in the woods parallel to the third stake on the electric fence, was a log with a bow hidden inside. Five paces from there is a verge covering what used to be a wolverines lair- inside is a quiver of surplus arrows he had nicked from a District Two academy. John spent a couple of minutes polishing away the years' worth of grim on the silver body of the bow, and arrows in the quiver with a handkerchief stolen from Derek's rarely worn suit.

He looked up at the mid-morning sun, checking the time. He had about three or four hours before he had to get back and get ready for the reaping. "Tonight might be a little sparse on the dinner …" he thought, then grunted, hitching the quiver on his shoulder and jumping on and off the log and began moving west, toward the berry bushes.

It was nice combination, being that most of the game in the forest tended to come by the area to eat. If John was lucky, he could get himself a baby deer, and some strawberries. John usually wouldn't mind a big buck, but there was no way he would get it home with all the Peacekeepers around. But then again, baby deer were a more tender meat than big ones, but they also didn't last as long in storage as the full grown.

Moving cautiously, the last thing John wanted was to get lost. The truth of the matter was that while, yes, he's hunted these woods before, he only comes once a year therefor he didn't know them all that well. Going west would assure something to eat, but the west section of the forest was also the most wild- feral dogs, bears, and if that wasn't enough, the trees grew tangled and thick, bathing the area in an artificial night.

The air was damp and heavy, thickened with cedar and moistened soil. Darkness fell like a great pavilion had been erected over John's head. His steps became softer, and he adjusted his quiver correctly, drawing a metallic shaft and connecting the notch, to the string.

Its five hundred paces through "Indian territory" before you reached the river, once you forded the clear rush of water, it was another two hundred paces to the wild fruit patches. If John was living here more permanently, he might trap in the area. People like fresh meat of any variety, and pelts are a lucrative item when the winter comes through, especially in this district with its heavy snows.

With the lack of the sun's morning rays penetrating the thick canopy high above the young man's head, a deep cold settled on the ground making the trip a slick and muddy one. John was suddenly grateful he had taken the button down coat on the hunting trip. Being that he was still a little hazy about where he was going, the youth started to count his paces, focusing on the ground as if the path was right in front of him.

That's when he stopped.

He must have been a little off today, with the coming reaping, and questions of his father that came annually, he never noticed that there was in fact a path in front of him. They were a track of footprints leading his way toward the hunting grounds. He could see his own breath when he shuttered one out. Quickly, he crouched next to the prints. They weren't just any prints, they were human.

"No, that's not right." He squinted at the tracks.

The feet were bare, which seemed normal he guessed, it was spring time, and some of the poorer kids of District Twelve only owned shoes during the late fall to early spring where they would sell the leather for extra food. It was the way the track sunk into the mud that confused him. The foot was small and slender, a petite girl, but it was the way it sunk in the mud, that didn't make sense to John. The girl had to be at least three hundred pounds, easily. But a girl with these feet couldn't support that kind of weight. Even if she was overweight and carrying a twelve point buck, it wouldn't look like that.

John got back to a full standing position, frowning down the misty way west. Without putting too much thought into the action he pulled his bow string back to half cock and began to follow the trail toward the river. There was a nervous clench in his stomach and his heart was racing, tracking the stranger with the weirdest print ever. He had been so puzzled that he hadn't noticed that the darkness began to recede and the soft trickling of running water began to echo in the hollow darkness behind him. He could smell the wet moss under his father's old supple boots, the damp fungus squishing under his soles. He frowned to shield himself from the bright light reflecting against the crystal flow of water.

Finding the end of the tracks, the teen rushed behind the trees, sidling and lurking behind cover trying to find a better view of the river, where his person of interest was heading. For a moment he pondered if she was lost, looking for a source of water. Either way, he wasn't going to take a chance, just in case this was some trap. He took a sniping position on an angle between a large trunked tree and a boulder several feet above the ground. Green eyes flicked back and forth from the shadows, looking for any sign on the river bed, or in the water. He wrapped his index finger around the arrow, and slowed his breathing. After a moment of nothing, he sighed, lowering his aim. He closed his eyes letting the sloshing of water in the waist deep river calm is breath, and lower his adrenaline …

SHEEF

The bow made a metallic creek, and on a dime John turned about face in a smooth effortless motion. With his aim square, and arrow notched back for the kill. The sharpened head was automatically pointed straight between curious eyes. He seemed to have found his mystery prey, or maybe she had found him, because she had come up right behind him and he had not heard a thing.

She wasn't quite what he was expecting, and maybe he wasn't what she was expecting either from the look she gave him. The girl looked about John's age, with shining dark hair in ringlets, and golden-flecked brown eyes that seemed almost stoic despite her curiosity. The girl's peachy skin glowed, and her slender body seemed to posture like she was nailed to a board. But through it all she didn't seem fearful, nor flinch at the weapon trained on her.

"Hello …" Her voice was gentle despite the disconnected look, and there was an almost disarming innocence to it.

"Hello" He repeated, despite the death glare he was giving her.

She seemed to get lost in her own head for a beat before she spoke again. "What's your name?" Her voice turning direct and forward; it took John by surprise.

"John" He replied, still keeping her at bay with his bow.

There was a smile. "Cameron" She said with a tilt of her head.

There was an awkward silence that filled the cold air around them. Taking a pause to think, John was starting to feel ridiculous trying to intimidate her, when she was smiling at him, almost as if she didn't consider the arrowhead a threat. Slowly John lowered his bow and relaxed his arm.

"What are you doing?" She asked curiously, as if these were questions in an opening protocol. He wasn't sure why, maybe it was the fact that she was very beautiful, or he found her innocence charming, but John felt safe around her, and dismissed the threat.

"Hunting" he replied honestly.

The girl got a strange look on her face. "Me?" She asked.

At first John thought she was joking, but when her eyes got darkly intense, he stiffened. "No" he replied in confusion. "For food." He corrected with a heavy handed voice that was supposed to be obviousness.

The girl tightened her cheek. "I could be eaten" She pointed out.

"I guess …" John sheathed his arrow back in the quiver as a sign of good faith. "But you're not really my kind of a meal." He quirked his eyebrow, that was when his stomach rumbled at the mention of food. He had left the house without eating.

"Could I be?" She asked almost hopefully.

It occurred to John, that this might be one of the weirdest conversations born out of the weirdest situation he's ever been in. He snorted at her, assuming she was joking and began to give himself some breathing room seeing as she was invading a good part of his personal space.

"I don't know …" he trailed off after a few paces. "Maybe if you were honey roasted," he chuckled to himself. When he turned back, he nearly went for his weapons as he found her extremely close to his face again.

"Just move here?" she asked, almost randomly.

What was she playing at? What is she even doing out here? Why did she make him smile when he answered.

"Yeah … sort of, you know, in a way I guess." He shrugged, awkwardly setting out for the riverbed.

"Heh, sucks for you." She smiled. Without missing a beat, the girl began walking with him.

"Heh," John let out a chuckle, and turned to get a better picture of what he was dealing with. She had dark hair, brown eyes, and peach skin. She actually didn't look like she belonged in District Twelve at all. Most people had black or blond hair, grey or blue eyes. From the look of her, she belonged in District 4. The problem with that is that no one was allowed to leave their District unless they were winners or people visiting from The Capitol. Speaking of the Capitol, she was dressed in a very fancy dress, might be one of the most fancy he'd seen since he had visited District One. Could it be that she was actually here from the Capitol for the reaping?

"Are you lost?" John asked.

The girl paused a moment. "Yes …" She answered in a serious deadpan response, a bit too much conviction to sound totally believable. But then what she doing out here anyway, in a dress, barefoot, without a weapon to hunt with? He might as well take her word for it, because he was drawing a blank on any other reasonable answer.

Leading the way, the boy hiked to the riverbed, and felt his stomach growl again.

"What is that?" Cameron seemed suddenly intrigued by his inner organ's groaning.

John gave a Derek-like grunt. "Hunger," he replied and found a perch on a boulder.

The youth observed the girl watching him in confusion. He wasn't sure if she was confused about his comment or the fact that he sitting on a rock, as if she never had seen anyone sit on a rock before. For a long moment she watched him, and then with a hop, she perfectly mimicked him. Once again, she had found, and was sitting in his personal space. He frowned at the action at first, while she stared with innocent unblinking eyes. Finally he just shook his head, reaching into his bag.

Baker's bread didn't come cheap in The Seam, and John had to trade for the loaves he bought earlier. Out here in the outer rims, capital credits and luxury items didn't count for much. So whenever John and his uncle returned "home", there was a bit of work that had to be done to sustain while they were there. So when John pulled out the warm bread with the thick slices of bacon between them, he knew it was something of high value that really deserved a special holiday on its own. On one of his rare drunken rants about his past, John had heard his uncle claim that his father was a baker once. John knew of a burnt out bakery near where they lived. He sometimes pondered since that night whether that used to be the old family business.

"How long have you been out here?" John asked, smelling the warm dough and the cooked bacon, letting it drive him mad.

"Three days."

With a snap of his head, John looked back up at her. She seemed unfazed by her answer, or by his reaction. She just turned her head slightly, eyes devoid of anything really. Suddenly he began to wonder if maybe she was running away from something.

"Why are you out here?" he asked, being captured by Cameron's eyes. He realized how, despite the dead look in them, there was something there, something alive, something different than he had ever seen before. For the first time since they met, she turned her head away from him.

"Are you running from someone, has someone hurt you?" he pushed gently.

At the queries, the girl slowly returned. Her look was fragile, like a hardened stone wall battered and cracked, but still held by a strong foundation. It was just the tiny cracks that captured John's heart.

"Yes …" She said quietly.

He wasn't sure why, but John had to fight to keep himself from touching her. He wanted to wrap her in a hug, to touch her cheek comfortingly, even just rub her arm. But all John could do was look at his hard earned sandwich, and sigh. He tore it in half, handing the girl one part. It was the only comfort he could offer her.

He thought maybe it would cheer her up. But all she did was look down at his gift, then back at him wordlessly, as if she didn't know what he wanted her to do with it. It made John feel like an idiot, he turned back with a shy blush and tore into his sandwich. He was just trying to help, now look at him, making an ass out of himself. His chewing was bitter and awkward.

Finally he regained enough courage to return to Cameron. She was chewing a bite of equal size to his, watching him. Silently they chewed, till finally John swallowed, then Cameron. Afterward, the teenage girl got the slightest of smiles as it went down.

"Like it, huh?" John scoffed with a grin.

"I've never tasted it before …" She replied as if to confirm it.

"Well …" John sighed. "Happy Hunger Games" he said in a mocking Capitol accent.

"And may the odds be ever in your favor." She replied in one of the best President Serena Kogen impressions John had ever heard.

The boy let out a hoot at it, which caused the girl to blink before she smiled; catching on that she may have said something funny.

Once again they were frozen to one another, John mesmerized by the sheer personality under the layer of stone dead pan in those eyes. Flicking his eyes down, he noticed some bacon grease rolling down her mouth, from the large bite she took from their sandwich. He couldn't stop himself when he reached out a hand, and cleaned it away with his thumb. It was the closest look of surprise he had seen from her, watching him with wide eyes. It was as if he just touched a priceless piece of work that no one had dared molest till now.

John went into full inner panic mode, but that wasn't the part that was in control of his body, because slowly he was moving her face to his. All she could do was watch, not with fear, but in true interest, and anticipation. She was invested in what would happen next.

Then he heard it, the beeping, and the hovering wining. If there was one thing that was stronger than the desire to kiss the beauty in front of John, it was survival. She must have heard it too, because she flicked eyes toward the tree line a second before him. Training took over and John twisted for his weapons.

THEOUW!

He loosed an arrow from his bow using instinct and ear to compensate for split second aim. Automatically he heard the shattering of glass and crackling electronics. Forgetting his prized breakfast, both teens raced from their spot on the river bank toward the tree line.

Lying next to a twisted tree was an metallic elongated orb, it's two eye-like sensor cameras encased in a rectangular, red glass protective shield. John's arrow had pierced one of the sensors, and the force had caused it to slam into the tree.

"Scouters!" John announced. Cameron's large eyes stared intensely at the malfunctioning machine. Scouters were artificial intelligent drones used by the Capitol to keep tabs of on areas and report back. If it didn't transmit their location, then the destruction of the drone would surely have a squad of Peacekeepers dispatched for retrieval.

"John, we have to go!" Cameron commanded. It was in her voice, that slight alarm … was she running from the Capitol?

"Right!" He pulled off his quiver, tossing it and the bow in the river, before finding the girl again. "If we go east and then turn south, we can get back to The Seam!" Without thinking he took her hand and tugged her with him racing into the woods.

It never crossed his mind that he was going through the thick of danger in the dark woods that he only causally knew. But luckily John's mind retained much of what he learned, and in panic, knowledge became intuition. Both their hands were clasped as they rushed through the woods. If he had been paying attention he might have been impressed to find the girl keeping up with him, effortlessly. But it was in John's opinion that sometimes stopping to think was as dangerous as not thinking.

Their feet made heavy thuds against the ground, and he was sure that if there actually were any game nearby that they would have been gone faster than lemon cakes on Christmas in District Eleven. If there was any evidence to that, as the couple exited the west wood, back to the well-spaced outskirts of the forest, they jumped a log and a flock of wild turkeys scattered in a dozen different directions.

Before he could turn at the marker adjacent to the weak point in perimeter fence, John began sliding on fallen leaves. Quickly John let go of Cameron, before he dragged her down with him. He landed with a thud. The girl stopped and watched him.

"Left!" he yelled at her. "Turn left, stay low in the meadow, it's the adjacent stake on the fence!" he motioned to her, his speech spoke in groans, the air out of his lungs. The girl took a step to help him but he pointed where she needed to go aggressively. "Go!" he yelled at her hoarsely.

She took a step back, studying his face, even with the usual stoic demeanor; he could tell she was surprised at his action. She stood for a beat watching him, almost as if searing his face in her mind, the way he had the moment he had laid eyes on her. Then, as fast as she was there, she was gone.

While he slowly found his way back to his feet, he took a private second to get himself straight. But all he could do was hear his uncle's voice in his head, lecturing him on his life and his choices. This Cameron is a stranger, a girl you just met, someone you don't even know at all. Now look at you, five minutes with her and you wanna play the hero, because she's got a beautiful face, and interesting eyes. Is she really worth a bullet?

He shook his head, maybe she wasn't, maybe she was worth it, but right now he was just as much in danger as she was. He had to get back, before the Peacekeepers got there and found their Scouter in shambles and him past the perimeter. He began to jog after the girl, slowly rebuilding the momentum in his body.

SHEEROW!

The trees rustled harshly and a pounding gust whipped John in the face. His grown-out, shaggy locks of dark hair swirled in the heated wind caused by twin jet engines of an unmanned craft loitering above the canopies. John saw a shark like aircraft appear above head, a spotlight darkened on its nose.

"_HK!" _

He threw himself into cover of bushes as the Capitol's automated patrol machine stopped a moment. The sound the spotlight made when activated was like the sound of a heavy metal box being dropped with a heavy clunk on a tile floor. The wide searchlight skimmed where he had been moments ago. He noticed as it passed that the heavy beam it used steamed the dew dampened leaves, and the youth was sure that the sheer candlelight power was like being under an oven lamp.

When John finally breathed, he was surprised to find that he had been holding his breath. But that was only when the HK's light clunked off, screaming away toward the meadow, and past The Seam. Getting out of the hedges he brushed himself off, the first thing the youth did was go right after Cameron.

"STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE!"

"STAND DOWN!"

John could hear the strong voices of powerful men screaming from the meadow. Without missing a beat he sprinted for the edge of the woods just a step from the open ground between the fence and forest. He slid on his knee behind a tree trunk and peeked out to see what was going on.

A whole company of Peacekeepers in their pure white fatigues, polished black boots, and chrome plasma rifles were surrounding Cameron as she stood in the middle of the ring. Her eyes were searching them, it was a look he had never seen before. It was dark and dangerous, searching the area around her like a lioness picking her prey.

"_Don't, don't you do it John … DON'T!" _

His muscles were aching, aching to carry him out there to rescue her, to get her out safely. But he wouldn't stand a chance against a whole company of Peacekeepers. He was out numbered, certainly out gunned, and out of options.

And yet …

John was slowly creeping from his spot, if he could somehow create a distraction, she could slip away. It was crazy, but he knew his way around the woods a lot better than any of the thugs did. But what was he going to do?

"_Is she worth it Johnny? Cause a head shot ain't no migraine!"_ he could hear his uncle's voice in his head.

Then as if he was fit with a tracker, brown eyes in the distance found him. Cameron was staring right at him from fifty yards away. He shot up in a ready position, but it was the look in her eyes, something halted everything in him. She shook her head at him.

"_No … don't, don't let them take you!" _

A mask of determination hardened his face. He stood to full height and came out of the tree line. "No …" He hissed. He couldn't believe this was going to be it, his life was going to end like this, over a stranger. But then would it be any different than his father? Decades later would people say he was as brave as his old man or would he be the stupid boy who wasted his life over nothing? He was about to find out.

Then, Cameron did something John didn't expect. She lifted her hands and walked into the thick of them, before anyone could see him coming. John slid to a halt in a patch of lilies as they swarmed around her. John wanted to charge after her, but all he did was watch as they quickly forced her down with a net, dragging her away like she was some animal.

The area got very quiet around him. The wind picked up, whistling through the trees, flipping his hair and jacket. The large open field of flowers swayed all around him when he slid to his knees.

It had been only five minutes and somehow he felt like those brown eyes would haunt him forever.

* * *

The Seam wasn't what people from other parts of the district might think; it wasn't like the toxic urban alleys of District Two. It was a scattered space of old houses, past their prime; some might say that they were past livability. But John hadn't been exposed to the environment yet in all the years he lived here.

The houses were small, off white from decades of disrepair - there was never enough money to fix them. They were perched on a hill of green, below lay a valley-like ditch where the power lines were strung down the middle between the houses.

John felt like he had strayed into a dream haze, trying to get over what had happened in the woods early that day. The collection of homes seemed to be shadows in his tunnel vision, as did the people. Sitting on a rocking chair was an old woman, or maybe not as old as she looked. The youth could hear the creaking of the rocker against the rotting wood of her front porch floor boards. Bellow him in the ditch valley, shirtless little kids dug through the moisten mud with sticks, while their mother scrubbed their clothes on a board, humming to the little girl holding a bucket still between her legs.

He stopped a moment and watched the two of them. He studied the little girl, dark haired, in a dingy cotton camisole that fit her like a night slip. He closed his eyes and all he could see was Cameron. Was she ever that little? Did her mother ever sing too her like that on their front porch?

He hurt all over, and he couldn't make it stop. Even when the mother looked up at him, and grinned lightly, he couldn't return it. He turned away only to find an old man sitting on his front porch. His thin face looked taut, his grey eyes suspicious as he thoroughly gnawed on the bones of a roasted squirrel. Something about the greedy way he pushed the metal tray toward him, the sheer entitlement to the picked apart animal, rubbed John in a dangerous way. It reminded him of the way the Peacekeepers took Cameron, with the same arrogance, like she was theirs, like she wasn't a person. But slowly the madness passed, and the old man wasn't an allegory for The Capitol, but a half starved old man living alone, most likely not to make it through the next winter. John moved on with a shake of his head.

Winners were usually built houses in a nicer part of the district called "Victor's village" But Derek Reese had told them to find a nice long board and shove it up there ass. So, The house that John lived in two months out of the year sat at the edge of The Seam, near the perimeter fence. It was a small two room house. It was fairly new in the community, only 80 years old. You could still tell it was white, and most of the home was repaired. When you had one of only two surviving winners of the Hunger Games from District 12, even if he didn't live in Victor's Village, he didn't live in a broken down shack.

When John was a baby, Derek returned with him to this house. They both lived here for the first six years of his life. Though John didn't know her name or anything about her, he knew his grandmother had grown up and lived in his house till she married his grandfather. Together they opened their own business, and lived above it. But something had happened when his uncle had gone to fight in the games, when he returned his parents were dead, and the family business burned out. The only survivor was John's father, who was told to run to his aunt in this house when disaster struck. John vaguely remembered his great-aunt; she had been quite young even when he was a toddler. When he concentrated he saw her soft blue eyes, the golden hue of blonde hair, and her beautiful fresh face like a raindrop. She was a kind woman, in her mid-thirties. His most consistent memory of her was how she would hold his uncle some nights when he had vivid terrors of the past, he could still hear her voice when she would take his face in her delicate hands and sing softly till it eased him back to normal. When she died Derek turned to the bottle and travel to supplant her song.

He crunched over leaves in front of a large willow tree. He stopped in front of the thick trunk, searching for the markings. It was a heart carved into the base, inside were two initials. One was a big **KE** and below in small hand was **PE**. John didn't know what it meant; whether it was his grandmother and her sister, or two other kids from District Twelve. Either way, he touched them for good luck like always.

For a moment it felt like someone was standing next to him, young and sad. Rather than flinch at the presence he closed his eyes. The wind picked up, and through the whistling crevasses of old homes and rustling leaves he could hear the soft words of a youthful voice singing in his ear like it did every night he was on the cusp of sleep in the house.

"_Deep in the meadow, under the willow  
A bed of grass, a soft green pillow  
Lay down your head, and close your eyes  
And when they open, the sun will rise"_

Despite the drunken slur undercutting the song that was being sung, John couldn't deny that the pitches of the two voices were almost a match, the song clearly being taught to the man by the owner of the young female voice. The girl in his ear and Derek Reese sung the song the same way, both longing, both remembering a lasting memory of better days, and both heartbroken of what had become of the man singing.

John opened his eyes, and turned to the railed front porch of the home, to find who he thought would be sitting in an old lounge chair, feet propped up, next to a bottle.

"_Here it's safe, and here it's warm  
Here the daisies guard you from every harm  
Here your dreams are sweet-  
-and tomorrow brings them true." _

He was a tall man of a medium build. Despite the handsome face, John was sure that he never seen him clean shaven. His soulful hazel eyes were hardened by memories of dead loved ones, and the trauma from the games he fought. Sometimes in the morning if you looked into the fogged icicles, you could almost believe that he had just killed someone … and maybe in his dreams he had … again.

This is Derek Reese, the victor of the 100th annual Hunger Games, and the sole survivor of the Fourth Quarter Quell. In the year that Derek was reaped, it was The Capitol's idea to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of the games by taking four tributes from all the districts, two boys, two girls. The field had been woefully condensed; there was also a lack of high ground. The results of these factors led to some of the most vicious and barbaric fighting seen in almost 100 years. The sheer scale of the battles and the wholesale slaughter of tributes was one of the worst blood baths in recent history. It was one of the least talked about games not because of the lack of interest, but for the fact that for the first time ever, it had been seen as something not entertaining.

Finally, after three weeks, half starved, and mostly dead, Derek and a mayor's son turned career from District One named Satin, were the last ones left. In the end, both became mortally wounded from their duel. When they were unable to finish one another off due to a lack of strength, it became a battle of who could out live the other. For two days straight they lay across from each other. Eventually Satin died of a blood infection from a wound he'd gotten when he'd punched his opponent in the mouth, despite Derek being the one holding his intestines in.

When he was crowned, and returned home, he found no hero's welcome from District Twelve. They had all glared; all turned their backs on him. The Quarter Quell was brutal, and vicious. Derek had done all he could to survive and come home. But the cost was overwhelming; he gave himself over to nature forgetting everything but how to live in the arena. Everyone had seen him and the things he had done, the people he had killed. So when that train rolled in, and he stepped off that platform, bag on his shoulder, no one was there to greet him that rainy morning.

Then he found his home burned, and his parent dead. Someone in The Capitol didn't want him to win, or maybe Derek was always supposed to die. One day, when John was a boy they had passed the old burnt bakery in The Seam, his uncle for some reason had suddenly stopped in front of the doors and just began to stare. After a few moments he began to laugh, but the sound of his laughter wasn't infectious, fore it wasn't funny, it wasn't heartwarming. Derek Reese's laugh was crushing, devastating, it was the personification of helpless, regretful, sorrow. He laughed and laughed, laughed till he cried, and when he cried he said the same thing over and over again, _"The Girl on Fire."_ John never understood what the girl on fire meant or what it was all about. John had used to comforted him when his uncle got that way, but now he left him to himself, there was nothing John could ever do to make it better, no way to return his grandparents to his uncle. He had become a walking parody to everyone, a dark mark in the country, a disgraced winner. Since John was a boy, people in the inner districts would give Derek Reese snide looks, and mutter "The man in ashes" and chuckle sadistically after he passed. He didn't know what it meant, but he figured it had something to do with the girl on fire.

"_Deep in the meadow, hidden far away  
a cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray  
forget your woes and let your troubles lay  
And when again it's morning, they'll wash away."_

He wasn't looking at John at all, though it seemed like he was. His uncle was staring at the carvings on the tree, and maybe that was why he was singing the old lullaby. John just sneered like he usually did when Derek was drunk and approached the porch, stomping on every leaf with a crunch under his double grip soles. John made to ignore the middle aged man, reaching for the door.

"Kill anything?" His voice still had a twinge of youth in it, though mildly darker and scratchy from the booze.

"_Just an innocent girl" _

John turned his head to the side watching the drunkard from his peripheral vision. "No …" He replied hardening himself to the sudden private smile of a girl in his memory. He pulled the door open; it gave a rusty squeak of a hinge unoiled since his grandmother had left.

"A lot of thugs marched through here, asking around." The older man didn't seem too fazed by the tidbit of information he provided. John knew that his uncle knew that it had something to do with him. Yet, Derek seemed strangely unaffected by the idea that his nephew could suddenly be a wanted man. Was he really that lost that he just didn't give a damn anymore, or did he know something John didn't?

"And look at all the hell I give." He replied shortly, entering the house. Once inside he gave the drunken man a glare, which he couldn't see, and even if he did, what would be the use? John let the door give its teeth chattering squeal, before it finally slammed shut.

He strode to the coat pegs near the door over an old dusty end table, hand carved in someone's spare time many years ago. He gave a moment to the silence; he let it wash over him. He removed his messenger bag roughly and hung it on his peg. The fog soon lifted over his mind and the events of the morning came to him clearly. Frustration became more and more apparent with each flash.

_Here it's safe, and here it's warm  
Here the daisies guard you from every harm_

He could hear his uncle finishing the song. He closed his eyes, and he see her clearly, the thin rays of the sun in her hair, the way she would give the ghost of smiles, making him feel like she never smiled, never smiled until she talked to him.

_Here your dreams are sweet-  
- and tomorrow brings them true_

It would be no more, she was gone now, taken by the thugs to their garrison. For all John knew she was already dead, executed in the public square. Maybe worse, maybe she'll be taken to The Capitol itself. Clasped into servitude to serve those rich bastards their food, clean their kitchens, and maybe comfort her master in his bed when his wife or her husband was neglecting them.

_Here is the place where I love you._

A helpless anger overtook the boy as he threw his father's hunting jacket against the wall, and braced himself against the homemade table. Outside he could hear the Mockingjay birds who always gathered at the willow tree pick up his uncle's song. He looked down at his hand, and saw the grease stain of bacon on them. He remembered the way he cleaned her lips off, the way she watched him, both boy and girl not knowing what to do but surrender to the unseen force pulling them closer. He could smell her on his jacket; it was like lilacs and cooked bacon.

_Here is the Place where I love you._

CRACK!

John punched the wall with all his anger and sorrow, for the girl he only knew for five minutes. He pulled his fist from a dent in the wall and placed his hands in the back of his head, winded from the strong emotions tearing him apart.

"Well if I had any doubts that you've got spirit, kid … you just put them to rest."

The foreign voice caught John by surprise and he whirled to confront it. A tall broad man was standing in the middle of the homes wooden living room. His skin was dark as ash, his face hard and primal. He wore a silver blue suit and gold eyeliner. In his hand he twirled a fedora hat that matched his suit.

"Do I know you?" John asked alertly. "Because only people I know set foot in this house." He had a male bravado to let the future opponent know that he couldn't be intimidated.

The man gave a good natured laugh at the threat leveled against him. "You got guts too … I like that." He trailed off walking farther into the living room suddenly out of sight. "It was always something I admired about your old man." He called to an unmoving teen.

It was a classic move, hooks to get John too follow, he may be bull headed, but the boy wasn't stupid. Yet, even if he knew what it was, the statement was too forward just to ignore. So John pursued the tall black man into the living room.

He found him near the fireplace mantle staring at an old black and white photo of a handsome boy with blond hair and blue eyes. There was a half grin on his face and a big sack of flour on his shoulder. He had a white tee-shirt and baker's apron that was covered in flour. John never really knew who he was, but while Derek told him not to worry about it, he insisted he stay on the mantle.

The youth didn't get too close, but he crossed his arms a few feet away, enough not to be in range for a sudden assault, but close enough to talk. The big man took the picture and studied it.

"You're not going to ask?" He said after a beat.

John frown. "Ask what?" He shrugged.

"How I knew, Kyle." The man replied.

Snorting, John just scratched the back of his ear. "You think you're the first person who ever came up to me, saying they knew my dad?" He asked dismissively. "When I was five my great-aunt and I would go to the old Mellark baker's shop. The old man, would always give us all the bread we wanted and a package of cookies just for me, because he 'missed' my father." John ended with a quirking eyebrow.

The big man just smirked at the story, staring a little harder at the boy's picture. "Did he?" he asked with a Cheshire grin reflecting off the dingy glass.

"Probably because he was my uncle's only friend ..." The boy muttered more than answered.

He placed the frame back on the mantle. "I wonder why that is." He said sarcastically, like he knew something that John didn't about the relationship between his family and the baker. John didn't like it.

"You know a lot about me and yet I don't know you." He glared.

The man turned back to face the teen, still smiling his bright Capitol white teeth at the boy. "Perry … Randle Perry, winner of the 85th District Eleven … in case you're interested." He bowed slightly.

"Which I'm not."

The man just grinned at the boy's sass. "No, of course not … maybe this will though." He reached into his suit pocket, and retrieved a red bandanna and tossed it to John. The boy gave Perry a long frown before he glanced down at it.

It was torn and tattered, been through the wars as it were. But it was when John gave it a hard look, noticing it was an arm band … like.

"You know about the Rebellion against the Capitol?" The youth couldn't hide the exclamation in his voice.

The Rebellion was a movement that John had heard about almost all his life. Like many things he couldn't learn himself he had asked his uncle about them. "All dead little girls, and star-crossed lovers." was what he would say in his classic gruff brush off of questions he didn't want to answer. In English it translated to "Don't worry about it." But on the other hand John knew enough about the origins to make an informed decision.

The Rebellion began during the 74th Hunger Games when a little girl named Rue was killed in the arena, and her ally showed her a great kindness by covering her with flowers. The girl's empathy, along with the anger over the murder sent the outer Districts into a frenzy. Though it was put down, the sentiment had lasted and over the decades, the shadow movement has grown, till here recently there had been open battles between Peacekeepers and Rebel militia in the outer rim.

"Yeah, I'm a rebel soldier, same as your uncle was, same as your old man." The big man twitched an eyebrow at the unloading of a Pandora's Box of secrets he just informed John of, waiting for him to react.

The youth was stunned quiet, before he gave a defensive chuckle. "No, no my uncle and dad weren't Resistance fighters, my Uncle was a hunter and helped my great-aunt with the apothecary, and my dad was a baker, a bread boy down at the Mellark Bakery." He motioned his head to the old man's closed down shop.

Perry just made an annoyed groan. "That's what everyone told you, huh?" He stiffly faced John, a glare narrowing his face, the look gave him a more brutish appearance.

"It's the truth." John took a step forward.

"No," the big man countered swiftly. "That's what your aunt said … she didn't like the idea of her nephews getting involved with us." The man sighed.

For a moment John thought about his aunt, she was a kind, gentle woman, people loved her. But he was no idiot; there were a lot of things that John knew where secrets in his family, hell he didn't even know the names of his own grandparents.

"What possible reason would my family want to have to do with the Rebellion?" He asked.

At the question the man gave a huge laugh. It was as if John had told him the biggest joke of his life. The more the teen had to wait for the man to recover from his tears and body shakes, the more his toleration of the man thinned. He didn't like it when people threw the fact that they knew things he didn't in his face, and above all else he detested people who liked to lord over him with the information

"I asked you a question!" John snapped.

Body shakes, evolved to chuckles. Taking his time, Perry cleaned his eyes with a handkerchief from his breast pocket.

"What reason does your family have for being involved with the rebellion?" He reconfirmed the question with a clear of his throat. "How about everything?" He posed to the boy.

Now he truly was lost. "Everything?" He said to himself, more than to the man.

Suddenly, Perry got quiet as if he might have let on a little too much. "Look, when your uncle got back home from the Fouth Quarter Quell …" he started.

"Yeah, I know my grandparent's home was burned to the ground."

"Right and your father …"

"Was told by grandma to run to his grandmother's house, where his aunt was and hide."

"Sure … but why?" He asked.

John frowned. "Because the house was burning down." He shrugged.

"Why was the house burning down?"

"I don't know, Electrical problems … my grandfather was a baker for god sake, he could have over heated the damn oven." John was getting annoyed.

"Right, but you just said that your grandmother told your dad to run here, and hide."

"Yeah … so."

"So, why would he need to hide, from a fire?"

"Look, Perry, are you gonna dance all night with your hand on my ass or are you going to make a move?"

The man just smiled at John as if he was an old friend. "Let me put it this way, your uncle unknowingly screwed up your grandparent's plans during his interview with Ceasar Flickerman." He said.

"Screwed up how?"

"He told Flickerman some things that zeroed the Capitol in on your grandparents."

"And why should that matter."

"You like the name Reese?"

"Do you like the name Perry?"

"I do, it's my family name."

"And Reese isn't mine?"

Perry got a knowing quirk to his big eyebrow.

John snorted. "Alright, so mom and pops "Reese" were hiding in plain sight from the Capitol, they found them, murdered them, and their boys joined the resistance to avenge them." He folded his arms.

It seemed like such a simple premise, and yet there was a hard sadness in John's throat fighting to get out. He spent almost sixteen years with his uncle, and in the matter of five minutes he got to know him better than he had in all his life. Suddenly, for the first time, John started to understand why he drank. He had killed to survive, returned home to have everyone turn their backs on him. He returned home to find his parent's dead only to learn that he had unknowingly brought it on them.

John fought the sorrow and returned. "So, why did you break into my house? So you could tell me the vague story of my family's woes?" He cleared the emotion from his throat.

"I didn't break into your house; Derek let me in too talk to you." The big man countered.

"About what?"

Perry got that impossibly white smile again. "I thought you'd never ask." He walked toward the fireplace seats and dug through a sack.

"I thought we'd never get there." John grunted in retaliation.

John reacted quickly, when the man, without warning, threw something large and heavy at him. He caught it, against his lower chest. It was rounded, cold, and metallic. The base was smooth, and scarred, as if someone had hacked at it enough time with a dull knife to scratch.

"That …" was all Perry said.

He glanced up at the dapper dressed guest, as he turned the object right side up. His face twisted, in shock and confusion as he took a good look at what was in his hands.

"Is this a joke?" He asked.

"Not a Joke." The large man reassured the teen.

The object was a skull, a human skull, a perfect replica of a human skull, except … it was made from metal. John took his thumb and rubbed it against the blackened and decayed teeth perfectly sitting in its mouth. There was a chill that went down John spine when he thought without its lips, it looked as if the chrome skulled individual died smiling. In its sockets were a two red sensor eyes like the scouter from that morning. The sudden memory turned John bitter. Those eyes were proof enough that whatever this was, it was Capitol made. Made by the people who took the girl he couldn't get out his mind.

"What is it?" He asked with a deep bitterness from within.

"What's left of the thing that killed your father."

The room went silent and still. Time somehow stopped for the youth he became aware of everything around him, the nervous breath of Perry, the creaking of the house, the Mockingjays in the willow tree outside.

"What?" John said just to say something.

Perry got a solemn calm on his face, and his small dark eyes became cold. "What you're holding is the head of the prototype model T-101 combat Infiltrator, known amongst our ranks simply as a Terminator." He leveled with the boy.

Something turned hard and cold inside him at the simple word. "Terminator" John repeated.

"It's a cybernetic organism, built by The Capitol's R&D firms and tested in the 108th Hunger Games." He explained.

Eye to Eye, the teen held up the skull and stared into it, seeing the outline of his face in its reflection. "If what you're saying is true, why is it that I've never seen it, or people talk about it, like the muttations in the 74th Games?" he asked, feeling like he was staring death in the face.

"You have …"

John flicked eyes to the bald man waiting for him to expand.

"It was wearing flesh and skin … they even gave It a name, to blend in …"

"Arnold …" John finished for him. "The career from District Two." He put down the head.

Perry nodded blankly. "Back then we got intel that the Capitol was going to test a new brand of weapon they planned to use against us during the games, we needed someone to go in as a tribute and find out just what it was. At the time, we knew it had something to do with the tribute that District One was planning on sending in."

"Sarah …" John said the name gently, as if it were sacred. The man stared at the youth, with interest at the way her name came out. The boy had the presence of mind to blush slightly at his own inflection.

"So …" he changed the subject. "You approached my old man for the mission." He guessed.

The victor just grunted with an old amusement. "He volunteered." He shot back.

"Volunteered?"

There were those pearly teeth again. "All we did was show him the picture of your girlfriend, and he volunteered."

"She's not my girlfriend!" He snapped, tossing the head back, never being a good sport at being teased. But judging by the man's endeared reaction when he caught the head it seemed to be a family trait, and an old joke at that.

"So he volunteered …" The boy carried on watching the man return back to his bag.

"Yeah, he found before the games that the machine would be after Sarah …" He replied.

"Why? District One is an old Capitol supporter." He was confused.

"Sarah was trained in an academy; she was the deadliest swordswoman of her generation. If the machine could kill her, then it could kill anyone." He replied digging through the bag. "We told your father not to get involved, while we think of something to counter, but instead he took the suicidal approach to the situation and tried to protect the game's second most deadly tribute." He shook his head.

John Reese had always admired his father for all the classical reason's a son admired a father killed on the field of battle, his courage, his sacrifice, his idealized existence as a hero without fear. But as John got older, and he saw how some districts such as one, two, and four, saw his father as scum, he began to have his own doubts about who his father was. But now that he heard the story, Kyle Reese protecting a girl who wouldn't blink in killing him in any other circumstance. He realized that maybe people really did have an accurate portrayal of his father. Maybe, just maybe, his dad really was the bravest man who ever fought in the games.

"So how does one kill a cybernetic killing machine?" he sighed.

"With this."

This time big strong hands handed the object to him gently. It was a medium length chrome cylinder with a black rubber grip at the bottom; three stripes of thick tape around the grip. In the middle were two buttons. John looked it over, flicking his wrist, studying the supposed Terminator killing weapon.

"A metalworker here in District Twelve smelted the material for it, and then a master smith in District 4 forged it, and a craftsmen in District 3 constructed it for us. We call it RX 1133." Perry watched the teen.

John turned the cylinder at an angle and flipped the red button. The Cylinder suddenly vibrated and a silvery blade shot out and with the ringing sound of sharp metal it began building upon itself, making the blade longer as it unfolded. When it finished, it stood long and slightly curved, glimmering in the early afternoon light.

"But your father called it, Dragon Slayer." There was admiration in the black man's voice.

The silvery blade made an almost ethereal ringing as it cut through the air, John flicked the weapon back, testing the weight and balance. The sword felt natural in the youth's educated grip, cutting easy strokes through the air as if it was made for him. For the little that John knew of his family, he had always been aware that every member going back three generations was a accomplished bowmen. Bows and arrows were the weapons of the Reese family. John himself was privy to a bow, but he found more comfort, and ease with a sword in his hand. He had found that he was quiet deadly as he was talented with the weapon, though for traditions sake he often chose the bow as his primary weapon, keeping the sword, much like his love for Sarah a secret attribute.

"He won't cut through chassis, but if you catch the Terminator on its vulnerable sides, he can be one devastating son of a bitch." The rebel added, watching John as he closed his eyes listening to the blades song.

The way the man said it, the leading in his voice. It made John stop what he was doing and open his eyes. He narrowed his brow, flipping the other button. The youth faced the guest in his home anew, the blade collapsing back into the cylinder.

"This might go as not needing an answer, but humor me, Perry." John tossed the sword back to the man. "Why are you here?" He glared.

The bluntness suddenly seemed to make the soldier nervous, and he paced away toward the window. It seemed that whatever was going to come out of the big man's mouth, it wasn't going to be easy. He cleared his throat of … emotion?

"John, I've come here …" He started.

"To ask me, if I would volunteer at the reaping in order to combat the new Capitol killing machine? Is that right?" John didn't pull any punches, crossing his arms again.

His recruiter nodded silently, unable to look at the young man. John wasn't sure if he actually warmed up to him for that, or if he wanted to shake him, for not being man enough to look him in the eye.

He weighed his options, listening to the room go silent. Could he really do it? Hell, it wasn't till now that it occurred to him that there were actually robots in the world. Yet, it didn't seem to shock him all that much. He looked out the window at the willow tree, the carved heart in its trunk. If he did this … what was the worst that could happen? He would die … well that was a given. But if he didn't what was his life? Wondering District to District, doing nothing? John didn't know a trade, know anything but how to fight, John was a hunter, a … Soldier?

"_I'm a Rebel Soldier, same as your uncle was."_

"_I didn't break in, Derek let me in too talk to you." _

"You son of a bitch!" John said automatically the realization coming to him like a hammer to the head. "You can go to hell!" John hissed through angry clenched teeth.

The man whirled, there was emotion in his face, but it was slowly being replaced by shock. It was apparent that he wasn't expecting to be denied.

"John! You're the …"

"I'm the what?" He cut him off. "I'm the only one who can stop it? Why? Because my bastard Uncle raised me for this moment?" John shouted at him, raising his voice so that Derek could hear him.

Perry crossed his arms. "We knew that once the T-101 was gone, that it was only a matter of time before they would try it again." He explained calmly.

"So, what? You decided that you had to have a back-up just in case."

"Yes!"

"So you're recruiting from the womb?"

"It's not that simple?"

"Make it that simple!"

"Your parents, your grandparent you were a genetic match for the mission … all of their skills, swordsmanship, two generations of archers, Strength, it was all passed on to you, we could see it the day you were born. Everything about you was a foil against what they're building. If the Capitol ever rebuilt the Terminator program again, we knew that you would be the perfect choice."

John found the man's pleading eyes, with an unsavory twist of rage, thinking about his life up to this point. The weapons, the training, both combat and survival. They traveled around the districts, so that he could get inside other tributes heads. All his life he was being trained to fight, and die for a cause he didn't know anything about.

"John …" Perry's voice got stern. "It's your Fate." He tried to make it sound comforting. But the sheer anger in the boy's gut, there was nothing reassuring about that.

"No …" John was stern. "There's no such thing." He was short and brutal. "And I'm going to prove it to you." He walked toward the door.

Perry crossed his arms. "This isn't about you and me, or about Derek, or your father. This is about our future, son." He made John pause. "You think this is just about some crusade against President Kogen, and her friends?" He pressed.

"Yes" John said bluntly. "I think this is exactly what this is about." He said.

Perry's jaw was squared and visible. "Millions of lives are at stake here, kid. If the Capitol is able to successfully test this new weapon, then it will be the end of the Rebellion, and the end of freedom in Panem." His voice was passionate and pleading. "All of the hopes and dreams sit on your shoulders kid, everything resting on one question ... will you join us?"

CREEEEEK

John opened the door.

"The answer is no." He glared.

For a long beat the tall man stood in the middle of the Reese living room, his Jaw rotating in order to relieve the pressure from all the devastated emotions inside him. He cleared his throat and lurched forward, sack in hand. He paused to say something to John, but he couldn't even find the boy's face. "Keep the arm band … It's were it was supposed to be in the first place." John suddenly realized that it was never Perry's. Once on the porch, he placed his hat back on, and gave a deep sigh. John watched him stride away, disappearing down the road.

John Reese's brain was on fire as he leaned on the door, outrage, anger, hatred. He had been to the inner districts and watched the other kids from there train in their Academies for the games. John had always felt bad for them. What was the use of a life when you were training for death. Now all these years later, it occurred to him that he was as much of a career as those other kids were.

His eyes turned to the drunken man sitting on his chair, feet up watching the willow tree as if someone was staring right at him. Slowly, distantly he lifted a green bottle toward his lips, keeping his eyes on the same spot. It was as if he was completely ignorant of all that had happened not only just now, but for the last fifteen years.

John strode over and without thinking, swept the man's feet off his perch. The porch rattled when the front legs of the chair returned to the ground with the man's full weight. He could smell the dark liquid when it spilled on his uncle's long sleeve. But, for it all Derek didn't make a noise all he did was wipe himself off.

In anger, John sidestepped into the older man's view so he saw nothing else but his nephew. Derek made a heavy sigh at the action.

"Were you gonna tell me?" John asked. He didn't need to build up, his uncle knew exactly what was going on.

Derek just stared at him, his mind seemed lost in a haze. "No …" it was a wonder were John learned his blunt honesty.

The boy crossed his arms and gave a sarcastic shrug. "Did you have any second thoughts?" He shook his head.

Derek lifted the bottle to his lips. "Seconds, and thirds, and fourths." He was taking a draft.

It just made John angrier. He reached over and snatched the green bottle out of Derek's hands and threw it off the porch with an impressive force. He could hear the dusty bottle shatter against the old willow behind him.

Taking another heavy sigh, the drunken older man leaned back in his chair, rubbing two fingers against his soul patch observing his nephew. It might have been his imagination, or his mind creating more things to make himself mad at, but John could've sworn that his Uncle got the ghost of a small proud smile.

Mimicking his uncle, John took a seat on the rickety railing of the wrap around porch. The anger was passing slowly, and now he wasn't sure what to think about anything. What was he going to do now? Was this all his life was meant to be?

"Why?" It was the query he couldn't get away from, the one question that his mind was screaming to be answered. "Why raise me like that … why, go through all that?" He stared into strangely sober eyes.

The chair creaked when Derek sat forward and John watched the man scrub is face, as if wiping away a mask he had worn half his life. "Just in case." He said, his voice muffled by his hands.

"Just in case what?" John tilted his head bitterly.

Derek's face emerged, and the boy was taken aback by how different he looked. It was as if he was someone else, someone John knew but hadn't seen in many, many years. It was a face that John had seen sometimes but dismissed as his imagination.

"Just in case, you were stupid enough to say yes."

BRUUUB!

The sound was foreign at first. It took some hard thinking, before it came back to John what that sound was. It was the shift horn from the coal mines. In all of the emotion of the day, the teen had forgotten that it was reaping day. It was the first call of assembly at the town square, for the potential tributes. The boy turned back to his uncle who was still drawing his attention toward the sound. He saw the sudden stress age his uncle into an old man, he dreaded that noise, too many bad memories.

There wasn't a word or phrase that John could properly express to fit how he was feeling in that moment. His uncle had spent all of John's life holding him at arm's length, fearing this day above all else. Should John be mad at him? Should he be understanding?

BRUUB!

"I've got to go …"

Derek turned back to the young man he raised and watched him. "Yeah … I guess you do." The rugged older man looked like he needed the drink he no longer had.

There were no words for the departure. John didn't know what to say to this rarely seen and not known Derek. So he just walked back into the house a moment and exited again, slipping on the old leather hunting jacket that belonged to his father, who inherited it from his mother, which she took from her father.

But as John was leaving, he fished out the red sash in his pocket. He stopped on the last step and lifted an elbow. The well-worn brown leather of his jacket was oiled and supple, but amongst the age marks, there was a tan line that seemed to stretch around his elbow. John took the cloth and pressed it against the jacket. He saw what he expected … it fit perfectly. He took the cloth back in hand and stared out into space, emotion's dwelling just underneath the surface, building against the barricade.

BRUUB!

The steam horn shook him out of the mussing and he just shook his head, flinging the arm band down on the leaves. He walked and walked till he disappeared on the road out of the Seam.

Derek Reese sat in his chair watching his nephew go, till he was gone. He just blinked and gazed around the old house where he had spent so many years of his life. It seemed so empty now. There was a time that the home was surrounded by laughter of happy children, having adventures … and bread. Now he was there with no one.

Suddenly the wind picked up again, the air against his cheek was like a hand stroking a comfort to him. In the corner of his eye he saw a brightly colored cloth that he hadn't set eyes on in many years. The chair creaked one last time as he stood his legs wobbly and unsteady as he chased it down the steps and into his grandmother's long dead apothecary garden.

When he finally got ahold of it, he was flooded with emotion over such a simple red sash. He closed his eyes and pressed the cloth against his face, as if he was kissing someone's forehead. A red sash born from blood, earned with blood. Derek scoffed when he thought that this family had spilled all the blood it had, for the cause it represented.

The wind picked up again and he felt someone standing in front of him. She was there when he opened his eyes. The girl was young, a little older than John, her skin was peach, her eyes grey. She was beautiful, wearing a dark hunting shirt and tan trousers. Her dark hair was in a single braid draped over one shoulder. Her eyes were searching and sad as she watched the man. She didn't speak, but her face said it all.

"I know I should've done more …" He said to her. She had no reply, she simply tilted her head at him, eyes becoming more and more glassy.

"I …" Tears were welling in his eyes. "I couldn't do it …" He cleared his throat. "I … I couldn't lose someone else." He shook his head looking back into her misting eyes. "I couldn't lose him the way I lost Kyle … The way I lost dad … The way I lost you." He sputtered a sob, a single sob for the past. The girl's expression lightened and she took a step forward, folding herself into him. There was a single tear on her clean cheek as she reached up to touch her child's face.

Derek closed his eyes, but the feeling of her familiar comforting touch never came. When he opened them he found that the breeze died down, there was no one there, just the echo of the past long forgotten, carved into the tree.

All that remained was the song of a solitary Mockingjay.

* * *

The sun was high in the cloudless sky of the early spring afternoon. The breeze was up, bathing the town square with a tender shot of cool air in relief from the unrelenting gaze of the sun. All around the rundown town square cameras were set up on metallic towers around the front of the justice building at the heart of the small town. In the bright day that seemed so rare in the weather patterns in this part of Panem, it was quite obvious that the heavy and aged coats of blackened grim on the old industrial buildings that gave everything a dirty aged feeling was on full display for the rest of the country to see and turn their noses up at. The grime came with the rest of the consequences of living in a District dominated by the coal mining trade. On unbearable hot days, the heat activated a certain hard and suffocating smell from the dust, leading many that had lived in the town to think if not all out say that it was in fact the closest a living mortal could get to hell.

But all of that seemed lost on Kacy Bobble, the escort of District Twelve. She was a young woman in her mid twenties. She wore a heavy plaster on her face as if she had dipped her head in wet glue and let it dry. On her cheeks were deep red circles of blush, and bright purple lipstick. She wore a tight skirt and a lace-fringed turquoise suit jacket. She peaked out from behind the curtain of the glass door, at the entrance of the big imposing justice building, down into the plaza filling with children from the ages twelve to eighteen.

They had to show up first, to sign in and then dictate how many times they would have to put their names in the reaping ball. The more times you put your name in, the more the Capitol would give you and your family. Most of the time, some of the poorer children would put in their name multiple times, and as reward for their courage, the government would give them roughly a year's supply of resources to last them and their next time .. If there was a next time.

Kacy hated this district, when she first signed up for the job; it was supposed to be so glamorous. All the girls wanted this job, three-hundred applied. Some came from better families, some had more experience in DR (District Relations), but they had chosen Kacy. The truth was that she was more than excited, her mother said this will make her little girl's career. Mother Bobble was right; there was no bigger spotlight on you when you worked for the Games. But if she only knew they were going to stick her in District Twelve, one of the poorest, dirtiest, and rebellious districts in Panem, she might have decided to continue to work at the family's hotspot restaurant. She had wanted a career district, a posh metropolitan setting, not quite like home, but at least close enough. But no they stuck her here, where they didn't even have hair straighteners in their showers. She couldn't think about the last escort who worked this district. Effie Trinket, the lady in pink, so beautiful, so promising, now she actually lived here, on a geese farm no less! She threw a promising career and a luxurious living away, and for what? A drunken old guy who won the games a bazillion years ago?

Uh, that wasn't going to be her, when this was over Kacy Bobble was going to get to a better place not spend her life in this dump with all the dirty, poor, and inbred kids. She dreamt of a place with real pageantry and athletes. She wanted to be the one to introduce the world to the next _Sarah_, and not be stuck here with a district that in 123 years only had four winners.

"Ms. Bobble" A dark and indistinctive voice addressed her.

Her jewels and adornments on her clothing jingled. "Hmm?" She sounded as bright as she could, this being the first day on the job and all, if she showed anyone that she didn't want to be here, they'd take this opportunity away from her, as quick as she had earned it.

The man's features seemed as indistinct as his voice. The inside of the justice hall was unlit, using windows for light on the bright day. She had a hard time making anything out, much less someone she recognized.

"Ma'am I am employed to have a word with you." His voice didn't have a capitol accent, but it didn't have a local flavor either, it simply, as the rest of him, was indistinctive.

The colorful woman tilted her head. "By who, sir?" She enquired brightly, a playful sense of curiosity.

Soles of a shoe clicked when he took a step back further into the dark. "Part of my job is to make sure you don't know." There was a dangerous seriousness in his voice that made Kacy feel an anxious nervousness straddle her chest.

"O … oh." Was all she could force out.

Satisfied with her understanding of the situation, the man continued. "I have something for you." He reached into a pocket at his hip, when he extracted the unknown object, it glinted in a sliver of light. Kacy squinted, trying to make it out, but it disappeared with the rest of him.

"When you choose for the girls …" He extended a hand into the light, he had on a black sports jacket, stiff and pressed neatly. In his grasp was a metallic finger brace. "Placed this on the index finger under the glove of the hand you plan to place in the ball. You will move your hand through the slips till one sticks to the finger." He commanded.

Kacy had spent her life being catered to her every wish, and she gravely disliked the manner in which this man was speaking to her. "And who is telling me to do this?" She asked her face building a flush.

The man made an amused grunt. "Someone much higher up than you and me." He replied. "Someone who can crush you and your family's restaurant to nothing." She could see the white of a sly grin.

Well when he put it that way …

"Consider it done." She tried to hide the emotional shake of her voice in a pleasant smile. She looked down at the metal finger brace, stainless, and shiny. She frowned at a thought.

"Do I wear this for the …." She glanced up to find herself alone, no man in sight, only people fluttering around, getting everything ready for the broadcast. "The boys." She finished her statement.

Suddenly there was the booming sound of dramatic music overtaking everything within earshot and a deep grandfatherly voice came over the intercom.

_**War! Terrible war! Widows , orphans, a motherless child. This was the uprising that rocked our land. Thirteen districts rebelled against the country, that fed them, loved them, protected them. Brother turned on brother, until nothing remained. **_

Kacy looked out to see that all of District Twelve had assembled when she wasn't looking. All of them, young and old, gaunt faces, some half-starved watched the presentation blankly. The woman was furious, she was supposed be on stage already, to introduce the film. But what was she supposed to expect from a district like this one?

_**Then came the peace! Hard fought, sorely won. A people rose up from the ashes and a new era was born. But freedom has a cost and the traitors were defeated. We swore as a nation that we would never know this treason again.**_

Thinking quickly, the young woman slipped her hand out of the glove, exposing her moistens skin, dampened by sweat to the air and quickly slipped on the finger brace. From the second she placed it on her finger she felt her muscles contract in her finger and she made a little girl whimper at the uncomfortable feeling of static electricity coursing through her hand.

_**So it was decreed, by the treaty of treason that the twelve districts of Panem were to offer up in tribute, one young man and woman to fight to the death in a pageant of honor, courage, and sacrifice. The lone victor, bathed in riches, would remind people of our generosity and forgiveness.**_

Quickly, the Escort bit back the tight cramping of her hand, slipping on the glove as fast as she could as the presentation was starting to wrap up with the thunderous majesty of the Panem national anthem.

"What are you doing? Get out there!" A woman somewhere behind her was whispering to her harshly.

"I know, I know!" She began to scoot out the door to the old grey and black railing of the justice building balcony, she was going as fast as her nine inch heals would allow her. She felt a blush come on as all of District Twelve began watching her instead of the end of the movie.

_**This is how we remember the past … this is how we safe guard our future!**_

As the large building sized screen went to black, Kacy was still a few feet away from the podium. There was dead air all around her, inside she wanted to scream. This was her first time hosting, and she was late to the podium. But just as she got to the microphone, she was hit with full frontal feedback, that made the crowd moan and curse, while making her yelp in a high octave.

"Heh … sorry, sorry. Most advanced culture on the planet … and still can't get a mic to work, huh?" She smiled brightly at the large crowd.

You could hear a pen drop.

"That was a joke." She giggled.

No one responded, just stared blankly at her, the way they had the presentation.

"Okay …" She cleared her throat, before finding her stage smile. "Welcome! Welcome, Welcome to the 124th annual Hunger Games and may the odds be ever in your favor!" She announced energetically, hoping to get them in it. But the crowd just continued to stare. Back at home whenever any master of ceremony announced that, everyone cheered. But not in District Twelve.

"So before we start …" She pushed on. "I believe we have a special guest to say a few words of encouragement to our future lucky contests." She cleared her throat. "Give a hand to the winner of the fourth Quarter Quell … Derek Reese!" She gave her best flaunting voice to juice up the crowd, but like always no one gave a hand. But worse still, no one came.

"Umm …" She said into the microphone. "Derek?" She looked around to find no one emerging from behind her. "Mr. Reese?" She said aloud, but no one came out.

"HEH, THAT'LL BE THE DAY!"

Someone shouted from the boy's side of the tribute lines. Kacy was starting to sweat under the gaze of not only all of District Twelve, but everyone back home watching the broadcast. Whatever boy had heckled up to her, she had to admit he was right, Derek Reese was not here.

"Alright then …" She gulped nervously, the ache in her hand was starting to intensify. She bet her lip. "Let's start shall … shall we?" She fought through the pain.

"You know what they say …" She tried to keep her stage smile, but her hand was starting to feel numb. "Ladies first." She just struggled out the point. Sweat was starting to melt off her plaster. She had to get the contraption off her finger, before she lost it.

Quickly, she shuffled on her heels to the large glass ball. In other districts the selection ball was grand, and finely decorated. Some were made from sacred stain glass, others plastic mixed with other audacious colors. But in the ass end of nowhere, it was a simple soot covered glass ball.

Clearing her throat, Kacy dipped the right hand inside, and like instructed shuffled through the papers, not grabbing anything. She simply flipped through the scraps, tossing them around, digging deeply inside. When she started to notice that everyone was watching with puzzled faces. She found her smile again. When she removed her hand from the ball full of names, she was surprised to find one of them sticking to her glove at an awkward angle.

For a moment she paused, was this the right paper that was supposed to stick? If it wasn't, whoever told her to put the finger brace on was going to kill her family. Her hesitation lasted only a moment, because the pain was getting intense, and she could no longer stand it anymore. She quickly shuffled back to the microphone and without any usual fanfare she cracked open the piece of paper.

"Cameron Phillips"

The crowd made a string of strange behavior when the escort called the name out. At first it was half of the crowd making a collective sigh of relief, then there was a pause to mourn who had been chosen. Kacy had always counted that as odd that amongst all of the districts, it was always twelve that seemed to mourn their tributes, winning never ever seemed to cross their minds at all.

"Who?" She heard someone in the spectator's crowd say aloud.

There was suddenly a small chatter amongst the crowds, it would seem that whoever this Cameron girl was, no one knew who she was. For a moment, the Capitol representative was going to have a panic attack. Had she been a victim of a prank? Was it a Prank by the Rebellion, to make President Kogen look like a fool? Or was it to make her look like a fool? Because that slut Sophia … bitch had been giving her the stank eye since that party …

Luckily, her fears were quenched when from out of the fifteen year old line, a slender girl emerged. She was a good size and skinny, There was a natural beauty to her face, fresh and innocent. It almost broke Kacy's heart to see her being escorted by the peacekeepers up to her. Up close she had a pair of innocently blank doe eyes flecked with gold, her dress was simple and yet beautiful, like the girl who wore it.

Kacy, didn't know if she should do it or not, but it was driving her to insanity. So while the girl walked up the long stone stairs of the justice building, the woman removed her glove and pulled the contraption off her finger. She made a pleasure filled sigh into the microphone at the sheer sense of relief as her finger muscles expanded. She gave a look down to see that her finger was a dark shade of blue, but slowly returning to normal again.

She felt the world's stare again, and realized what she had done with the microphone. "Umm …" She giggled nervously, turning she found the girl right in her personal space. "AH!" She nearly fell over, which funnily enough earned some giggles from some of the younger children. Not her jokes, or magnetic personality, but her nearly falling over. She told herself to remind the producers to hit her with a truck next time she needed to lighten up the mood.

"Hehe … AH! There you are." She tried to cover, placing her arm around the girl's shoulder. "So you're Cameron …" She tried to lead off for a round of questioning.

"Yes" She answered with a blank deadpan.

Kacy nodded. "And it seems like no one knows you around here." She giggled playfully.

"Seems not."

"Well don't worry, sweaty, that'll change … right folks?"

"…"

The escort was starting to get a little irritated at being the one to carry every conversation here. "So … anything to say?" She shook her.

"No"

A small glare was forming. "No? Come on beautiful … something we outta know?" She pushed. The girl blinked and turned her attention to Kacy who formed a big smile to encourage her.

"You're wearing a wig."

Pearl white teeth chattered under pressed lips at the innocent comment. "Okay …" she shoved the girl away a little less than subtly. She could just hear everyone laughing at her back at home. "The boys then." She tried to hide her anger.

"HEY!"

Someone shouting out to her caused everything to stop. She blocked the sun from her eyes with her hand, gazing over the crowd and saw someone step out from the boy's fifteen year old line. He was tall and slender with dark grown out hair, combed back and parted. His clothing wasn't like the others with a polished formal look. He had on a dark blue t-shirt under an old dark brown leather field jacket, he wore black cargo pants tucked into very old hunting boots of supple leather.

He walked closer to the stage till he was standing just below Kacy and Cameron, none of the peacekeepers barring his passage, interested in what he had to say it seemed. His green eyes flicked to the girl flanking the Capitol representative. For a long time they stared at each other, not saying a word. Then it looked as if he gave the girl a reassuring grin, before the teen turned back to Kacy and gave her a casual shrug.

"Why not?"

* * *

**Author's Notes**

_**Playlists … **_

_**The Title of the story is based off the Billy Joel song "The Entertainer" if you don't understand why that is … go listen to it. It was my muse. **_

_**The title of the Prologue was also named after the Billy Joel song "Allentown" in tribute to District Twelve nearly forty years after the events of "The Hunger Games" It was also a muse. **_

_**Derek's backstory is based off me listening to "Born in the USA" by Springsteen and a backstory being born out of that. **_

_**Some notes before I go … **_

_**No I will not be placing this in the Crossover area … If you bother me even once with this, your comment will be deleted and go unanswered. Yes, this is a TSCC story that takes place in Panem, but it's a Mainly TSCC story with vague mentions of cannon characters of the movie "The Hunger Games."**_

_**For a second time, This story is based off of the Movie franchise of the "The Hunger Games" I know of several things in the books that is contradicted by this story, but that's why it's AU. Try and enjoy the story. **_

_**As always Read, Review, and if you have questions drop me a PM, I'll be happy to do my best to respond.**_


	2. Johnny's Gone for Soldier

_**Sorry for the huge delay in posting this … the chapter was done two weeks ago, but my Beta had just gotten back from vacation, and apparently didn't get the memo that vacation was over. So she spent the last couple of weeks sucking down mojitos, and punching Suburban Atlanta PTA soccer moms in the face. But lucky for me and you the readers, her house arrest has given her an unlimited time to herself. **_

_**Her bordem is our gain, so there's that.**_

_**Hope you enjoy it. **_

**Johnny's Gone for Soldier**

_It was late in December, an overcast had settled over the sky like a dark wet blanket, dripping slowly. Those droplets seemed to freeze and fall. The four year old boy sitting in the middle of the living room floor watched his aunt chop flowers, his uncle leaning against her legs, sipping from a mug. It was strange but he could almost smell the cold outside, which smelled a lot like snow. _

_John Reese loved snow, loved how it was so soft and powdery like sugar. The boy suddenly got distracted by the thought of the sky raining with donuts … oh man that would be one of the greatest things to ever to happen to him … but snow. He also liked how you could shape it to anything you like. He could make a snowman; his aunt had taught him how to do that. He liked it when she would take him outside with their matching puffy coats and just let him wander around. She would sit down under the willow and smile. He liked the way she smiled, in fact he liked just about everything about the beautiful woman humming to herself dropping petals in her nephew's hair, who seemed too distracted to notice. _

"_Derek! Reese or … whatever your name is these days! Come out here you grandson of a yeast turning whore! I got something to say to you."_

_A man came stumbling into their front yard and began to rant. He was drunk and yelling at his uncle; John had never seen him before. He was a big guy, dark hair, olive skin. It seemed strange to the boy because no one ever shouted at his uncle. People glared, cursed under their breaths, grunted when he passed, but no one actively came out to insult him. But this guy wasn't really insulting Derek it seemed it had something to do with John's grandfather. He called him a thief, and a liar, said that he was a poor excuse of a husband for not being able to protect … something about a cat? But for all his shouting his uncle Derek stood by the window and stared at the guy, his cup of coffee in hand. _

"_Cute." His uncle said with a glare, sipping the hot liquid._

"_Don't Derek … He's just drunk, he doesn't know what he's saying." His aunt came up behind Derek placing a hand on his arm. _

"_No, he knows exactly what he's saying." He told her. _

"_Please, just don't." She touched his hair. _

_John was still threshing flower petals for apothecary as he watched Derek place his hand on her lower back and walked toward the door. His aunt took a worried breath and found John's gaze, she gave an uneasy grin. "Stay there baby." She said gently. _

_Quickly, she strode to the coat peg over the end table. Derek hadn't taken a coat when he opened the door, but his aunt took her sister and father's leather jacket off the peg and draped it around herself snuggly. _

_John got up, from his play and toddled toward the window to see what was going on. _

"_He was a good for nothing!" the older man said, stumbling toward Derek, his aunt standing in the doorway. _

"_Go home Gale …" She said as kindly as possible "You're drunk and Kat …" _

_The stranger waved her off with a growl, "That waste of space baker couldn't protect her! He, he let them burn her alive … Because of you!" he threw a dark bottle at Derek. He easily moved out of the way, John dropped to the floor, hearing the bottle crash against the pane. When he returned purple liquid was running down the window. _

"_I'm giving you twenty seconds to get out of here Hawthorne before your next meals will be through a straw." Derek warned him from the porch steps. _

_The threat seemed to make the drunk laugh mockingly at the younger man. "Or what, Derek? You gonna skewer me with an arrow like that big ol'mean boy from District Seven … what was he? Twelve?" He stumbled toward his target. Derek stepped off the planks of the porch and into the muddy walkway._

"_Derek … don't!" The blond haired woman called after her nephew. _

_Derek ignored her as well. "Keep talking old man." Despite his threatening nature, his face expressed no emotion. _

"_Oh I know, how 'bout that exotic girl from District Four?" He got face to face with him. "Your ally … you know the sick one?" He added on. _

"_You're about to cross a line you're not going to get back from, Hawthorne …" _

_A grin of almost self-loathing spread across Gale Hawthorne's face, "Am I going to end up getting my brains beaten out of my head in my sleep … like __**Jesse**__?" his breath steaming in Derek's face. _

_The scruffy younger man's hands found the drunks throat, and he began to squeeze. Breath was going out sporadically as the drunk collapsed to his knees in the snow drift. _

"_Derek, NO!" The blond woman ran into the yard. _

_John gasped as he watched his uncle Derek seem to become someone else at the snap of a finger. His soulful searching eyes became crazed and intense, his jaw was tight and his teeth clenched. Heavy steam came out of his nose, his effort to end the older man's life visible with every breath. He scared John half to death. _

"_Derek…" His aunt tried to pry his muscular arms away from the once dependable old family friend, but her delicate slender hands seemed to do nothing against his angered actions. It seemed strange to John that the man in Derek's grasp didn't seem to move or fight back. _

_It was only when Derek looked back at the house trying to move his aunt away from him that those eyes found John in the window. Suddenly it was as if someone moved smelling salts under his nose, waking him from a haze of the past. John wanted to hide, but he was a deer in the headlights. He just watched, his uncle blinked rapidly and glared at the man in his grip. _

"_No," he growled and threw the man face first into the thick old snow on the lawn. He let out a deep calming breath. "I'm not going to kill you … it's what you want." His chest heaved with adrenalin. Their aunt wrapped herself around his hanging arm as he stood over the drunken man who was coughing harshly. _

"_If you're not man enough to kill yourself, don't come around here looking for someone to do your dirty work for you!" Derek warned. "Cause I'll put you in a body cast. What's worse than being a drunken loser, is being a crippled drunken loser." He gave the man a swift kick to his diaphragm and walked away. _

"_Go home Gale." The middle aged beauty said pleadingly, following Derek back to the porch. _

_On the steps Derek paused, finding his nephew still watching. Derek blinked and with a hard sigh he gave a curt nod to the boy. John got a small lopsided grin and returned it._

* * *

"Well this was a good Idea."

The private room where the Peacekeepers had placed John smelled slightly off. It was a scent like ink, coal dust and a hundred years of oppression; which really was weird when you consider that it was actually located inside the Justice Building.

John's hunting boots thumped on the dusty wooden floor underfoot as he paced towards one of the windows and peeked outside. He squinted at the brightness of the sun suddenly gleaming in his eyes. Below, people were wandering away, back to their shacks to celebrate another year with their children before the nightmare begins again. John sighed and stepped away from the window, clanking his heels toward the middle of the room. The silence seemed to surround and penetrate John. He stopped, closing his eyes, letting the calm settle inside him.

"_There you have it, your tributes from District Twelve!" _

He could still hear the escort in his head, could still see the confused and innocent look on Cameron's face when she asked them to shake hands. Her golden flecked brown eyes keeping him in perspective under the spotlight of the country. Did she think he was crazy? Was he? All that way to the reaping he was fervently against involving himself in the rebellion, an organization that had dominated and controlled his fate for most of his life, without him even having a say. He was going to go home after this was over and rethink his life.

But all it took was one name, the girl he had only known for five minutes, the girl he thought he had lost in the woods that morning that would forever haunt him. He watched her on the stage, about to be thrown into the hell of a game she probably didn't understand from the way she seemed to watch everyone else. In that moment he couldn't stop thinking somehow she needed him now. He couldn't save her from the Peacekeepers, but by god he wasn't going to leave her to the machine waiting to be unleashed on the rest of the poor unsuspecting bastards waiting for them in the capitol.

"Five minutes."

John didn't open his eyes, when the door to his room opened and shoes clicked on the floor. They weren't boots, dress shoes, soles of real rubber not that synthetic shit … really expensive footwear.

"You surprised?" John asked the new entry.

There was a chuckle at the question. "No, not entirely …" Perry replied. John opened his eyes, narrowing them at the big black man with the primal face and blue suit, his faithful fedora twirling on one finger.

"Really?" John said shortly. He didn't like the idea of the arrogance to actually believe that John would just come crawling back to this life, like he didn't have a choice in the matter.

The man smiled, there was a heavy weight that lifted off his shoulders since the last time they had talked. With John now entered into the Games, it seemed that the recruiter's job was all but over now.

"You tell someone they're here to save the country, they're understandably skeptical, but throw a pretty girl in the mix and they're clamoring to rescue her." He said with a knowing pearly white grin.

John's face fell. "I wouldn't know anything about that." He tried not to sound defensive.

"Sure …" He snorted.

John sighed and walked back to the window. "So …" He folded his arms. "What's the plan now?" He turned his head.

"Well … despite what you may think, the job is pretty straight forward. Go through the motions of the Games, the parade, the training, and the Flickerman interview. Your mission is to simply identify the machine, and get the word to us."

"How do I do that exactly?" He asked.

The man lumbered next to him. "Your sponsor, keep your eyes peeled, observe the tributes, give us a list of the top three targets." He nodded.

John grunted in confusion. "Hey, you realize that Sponsors aren't allowed to talk to tributes … that's why there's mentors." He turned to face him.

"In the past yes, but they've changed the rules this year … some of the highest rollers in the Capitol are being given a special privilege of meeting the tributes … we tried to get a mentor for you, but it seems that President Kogen assigned a mentor personally to District Twelve."

"_Isn't that interesting?"_

"Great … Any idea?"

"None that we know of."

John rubbed his face worrisomely. "Alright, when I found out who this metal bastard is masquerading as, what then?" he asked.

Perry gave a careless shrug. "Well …" He drew it out. "You … you know, you do your duty … you uh … you go get 'em, you show 'em your stuff." He cleared his throat.

There was an unimpressed blank face sitting on John's head. "You mean to tell me, that when I find out who the machine is … I'm supposed to "go get 'em" just like that?" He suddenly flashed to a grave underneath the willow, with his name on it.

Perry frowned. "No, not exactly. Once you've confirmed the machine's identity, our sponsor will drop a night parachute to you. Inside should be the RX-1133, then you go get'em." He explained.

Quirking an eyebrow, John sighed. "Sounds simple enough." He said sarcastically. When he rounded for more information John started to feel a bit outraged to see the man already walking away.

"Not entirely …" Perry called. "The Capitol will know you're an operative the minute you expose the 'Dragon Slayer'. Make absolutely sure that who you're fighting is the machine, or you could find anything from a firestorm to a tidal wave coming if you're wrong." The victor placed his hat back on.

"Comforting." John replied stiffly.

Perry snorted. "Have faith, John … She'll be apples." He winked to the teen, exiting the room. When the Peacekeeper closed the door it gave a hard bang.

He frowned. "Apples?" He shook his head in annoyance.

The silence returned, but it was unnerving this time after his talk with Perry. He was suddenly not sure what he was getting himself into. He had done a lot of stupid things in his life, but this might just take the cake. He took an uneasy breath, and shoved his hands in his jacket pockets.

He didn't expect anyone else to come see him off. Who was there left anymore anyway? His father was dead, he didn't know who his mother was, his grandparents were wiped away, and his great-aunt, the closest thing to a mother he ever had, had died when he was little. He suddenly felt all alone, the last man standing, the last of a line of shadows he never knew all that well.

The door opened again, and feet thumped inside.

"Well that was a good idea."

John grinned grudgingly at the voice, and turned to find his uncle staring at him. His face was what had been when he left, not entirely the uncle he knew anymore, but someone who was still blood, a comfort to see in any situation.

"Well, you know me …" he said with a sigh.

The man grunted mournfully. "Woefully …" He said scratching his stubble. "I'm guessing you didn't think this one all the way through. If you had I'm guessing you wouldn't have made a rush to stupid." He was searching his nephew's eyes.

"I made a decision …" John felt a fire in his gut about the same lecture he had gotten about three times a day when Derek wasn't drunk. "Live with it." He snapped.

Derek made a noise in his throat. "Trust me kid … I've lived with plenty of stupid ones before." He sighed. The teen rolled his eyes and slowly turned away, walking back to the window.

"Hey," he stopped John, grabbing him back. John gave a petulant sigh.

"Yeah" He grumbled.

"Stupid wouldn't be complete without the pin." He held John's hand out and pressed something cold and metallic in his palm.

When he removed his hand John saw a pin, golden hued, but chipped from age and scorched from use in heavy combat. It was an encircled Mockingjay in flight with an arrow in its talon. There was something familiar and comforting about it, like all the nights he spent in their house in the Seam, feeling the motherly caress of a hand through his hair while someone hummed sweetly into his ear.

"A Mockingjay pin?" He said with a squint, holding it up to his eye. He remembered about some girl from their district making it famous for decades, Katniss Evergreen? Katniss something … Co-Victor of the 74th; she had disappeared after the third Quarter Quell never to be heard of again.

"Anyone who ever wore this got out of the arena alive. Three generations, mom, me, Kyle, and now sadly you I guess." He gave his nephew a familiar nod.

John shifted his jaw, taking the pin in his fist. "If that were true, than dad would be here wouldn't he?" He countered coldly, stuffing the family heirloom in his jacket pocket.

Derek stared straight through the boy. "Who said your father didn't give it to someone else before he died?" He countered.

"Sarah?"

"Times up!" a peacekeeper with a black beret and a golden Capitol eagle pinned on it stalked in. The wise guy was all athletic looking, with a sternly arrogant face of someone with too much authority.

Derek rolled his eyes. "Three more minutes." He countered.

The man made a scoff like Derek was some annoying insect buzzing around his head on a hot day. "No, now!" He swept in grabbing Derek's arm to haul him out.

Like a striking snake, Derek's hand snatched the big hand on his arm and twisted it at an odd angle. The man made a painful yell of protest. The former victor's other hand gripped the Peacekeepers throat, dropping him hard to his knees with a heavy clack on the wooden floor. John felt he'd been here before.

"How much time now?" Derek brought the tall man's face toward his.

"Three … three more … minutes" he gagged out.

"That's what I thought." he tossed the man backward on the floor. The soldier struggled to his feet rubbing his arm; his face when he glared death at Derek was more personal than procedure. He spread his feet and took a clumsy swing at the man. Derek jerked his head back letting the man's strike pass in front of his face. Being missed, the older man reared back and hit the Peacekeeper full in the face with a closed fist. The blow spun the trained man; he was holding his jaw in place, slightly bent over when it ended.

"You're wasting my time." Derek sent a foot into the man's backside. John watched the Peacekeeper stagger with the momentum out of the room.

John snorted, there was a reason that they had chosen John he guessed, and watching Derek give some thug a 101 on fighting fist to cuff might have something to do with it. This was the man that trained John since he was six.

Massaging his knuckles, Derek stared back at his nephew. But now, for some reason, they just couldn't seem to find the words anymore. To John he guessed they had said all that needed to be said. It was now that time where he said goodbye to the only family he had ever had or known.

"Well … I guess it's about that time." He seemed unsure how to navigate this family waterway. But Derek surprised him, when he placed a hand behind John's neck and pulled him closer.

"Look uh … they're going to put …" he began.

"A lot of stuff in the cornucopia, I know, get a survival pack and let the animals sort themselves out." He finished for him.

Derek sighed. "Yeah, also remember not to …"

"Directly engage in open ground, stand up fights lead to scratches, which leads to infection, which leads to death." John crossed his arms.

His uncle smirked. "Alright smartass, so you know the drill."

"I do …" He confirmed. "Any other pearls of wisdom before I go?" He asked sarcastically.

There was a sudden haunted look in Derek's soulful eyes when he spoke. "Yeah … one more." He assured, the brooding of his face seemed to unnerve John emotionally. The older man cleared his throat and gave sniff.

"Don't do anything in there, that you can't live with out here."

He didn't seem to be present even looking into John's green eyes. There was a flashback in the teen's mind to Gale Hawthorne's rant when he was a small boy, about a sick girl named Jesse and Derek beating her to death in her sleep. He wondered if that was who he was thinking about.

"Alright …" John nodded. "Alright," he assured Derek, grabbing the back of his neck with a comforting squeeze.

"Alright." The former tribute cleared his throat again and turned away. John watched him leave, it hurt deep inside. They were all each other had, and now he might be going to throw his life away, leaving his uncle all alone in their house.

As if Derek could read his thoughts he turned toward the door. "No more stupid decisions … got to play the rest of it clean, kid." He flashed a trademarked shit eating smirk his way.

"Probably make a lot better decisions now, I've taken all the stupid I can hanging around with you." He returned the smirk.

"Fine …" Derek gave a coy smile at the comment. "Don't try to win the war with one swing." He chuckled.

There was no sorrowful goodbyes, no tears, it wasn't the Reese way, it wasn't their way. A smart-ass cocky salute from John replaced a hug and a "be careful".

* * *

When they left the Justice Building, they were taken into a government car, it was luxurious inside. John realized that these were the cars that only people of great importance got to ride inside, like when the mayor had to go somewhere, or when some official from the capitol like the mining inspector came by. John had never been in a car before., He and his uncle always used more public transportation. Some might call Derek Reese cheap, but at the same time John never begrudged him. They saved their fortune and hid it in several places all over the country. Part of not drawing attention to yourself was not to be so audacious with your transportation.

What he had really been hoping for was a moment alone with Cameron. But she hadn't said a word, not even when Kacy, the escort, was fuming how she was humiliated on national television twice by their antics. The girl avoided John's stare, content with the view of District Twelve passing by, as if she had never seen it before. John was sure that when they reached the train station, he'd have at least a moment alone with her, while they prepped their ride to the Capitol. But his plan was foiled by something that not even he was anticipating. People from their district were waiting for them. Well, not them … for him.

There had only been three volunteers from District Twelve prior to John. Katniss … Ever … her name is. Peeta Mellark, Old baker Mellark's boy who volunteered during the third Quarter Quell so that he could be with his lady love, Katniss …. Everdeem? He vanished with her during the Third Quarter Quell, never to be heard from again. The last volunteer was John's father, Kyle Reese, which it so happened seemed to be why people had come out to see him off. Kyle Reese was a Hero in District Twelve, no matter who his brother was. John was his son, and because of it they all came to say goodbye, and wish him luck.

"Yo' daddy would be proud!"

"Go get' em Joan!"

"John"

"Him, too!"

People patted him on his shoulder as he went, cheering him, shaking his hand. He didn't know that he was that important, but according to Kacy, his somewhat misconceived arrogant attitude of walking into this new shit storm had inspired the community to rally. John wondered if the people had known that it all had been to save a girl that would most likely be trying to kill him soon, if they'd be the same way. But at the same time it was just a little touching and encouraging being a part of that moment. Luckily though, they had a schedule to keep, and Kacy ushered him away as they began to chant "speech" at the platform.

"Uh! Finally, civilization!" Kacy Bobble groaned, sashaying inside the luxury car that John and Cameron followed her inside of. The voices disappeared as fast as they were there and John was surprised to see that they had already left the station and they didn't even felt a thing.

It was the first time that John and Cameron had shared a look since John volunteered at the Reaping. The luxury car was a strange place for both of them it seemed. There was food of every kind, cakes, chocolates, and other frosted bake goods, that John was sure he had only tried maybe once or twice in his entire life. On the other table were meats- steak, pork skewers, ribs that were dripping with some sort of sauce. John was familiar with these things, but it was weird to him because he had never had something he hadn't skinned and butchered himself, also there were spices on the meats that he didn't recognize also.

"Mmm …" Their escort was already stretched out on a leather love seat, heals kicked off, enjoying a glass filled with ice cream. John had had ice cream before … it was _the_ big thing of his young childhood. His aunt had made ice-cream from hand, sure, but to have the professionally made stuff … that was a Capitol man's treat, way beyond a victor's riches.

John watched the woman with a frown. It would be his luck that the year he gets in there would be no one he knew on his team for the Games. John had thought at least he would be going in with some knowledge of who would be helping him, possibly, Escort Effie Trinket- a very old family friend, though he wasn't sure why to be honest. She had liked him to call her Aunt Effie. Her constant bubbly personality and exceeding vanity made her a strange person to have Sunday dinners with, considering his Uncle's personality. But she was always very kind too John, and she wasn't bad for sore eyes either, when she wasn't wearing that god awful pink wig. She retired last year it seemed, which meant that her de-aging treatments provided by the Capitol would now have to be on her own dime. John thought he would love to see Effie as an old woman, not the vague thirty something she had been for the last forty years.

The hope was that even without Effie, he'd have old Haymitch, Effie's Husband, the very first winner of the Hunger Games from District Twelve, to help me through this. The old man wasn't blood, but like Effie he was the closest thing to family he and Derek had. Haymitch had been the mentor on and off for almost sixty years, though he had only provided three winners in those years. It had been he and Effie's teamwork that had saved his uncle, and apparently his grandparents, whoever they were, or where they came from. But, it would seem that John's grandfather-figure was also missing in action, since there was a new Mentor assigned to them this year.

"So … what's your story?" Kacy said with a mouthful of ice cream, looking from John to Cameron. The teen glared, if this was supposed to be who was going to sell them to the people that were going to help them survive, he'd have his work cut out for him.

"What's yours?" Cameron asked back, standing shoulder to shoulder with John.

The young woman probably only four or five years older than them shrugged. "This was my first day … gosh, could it have gone any worse?" She giggled girlishly. "Man you can't top my bad day." She sighed sticking the spoon in her mouth and sucking on the fudge coating.

John glared. "I bet I can." He grunted with a sigh, motioning Cameron to a pair of recliners in front of the love seat.

"Oh …" Kacy sat up. "I'm …" She realized what she had said, while the couple settled. "Sorry." She giggled carelessly. "Of course you could top mine." She popped her head with her palm. "Ow!" She said aloud when she hit her head a little too hard, her spoon flying away behind her.

Cameron scrunched her eyebrows at the display, as the young woman began searching for the spoon on her hands and knees. "Is she going to be representing us?" She turned her head to John.

"Now we can top her bad day." John responded to her question, watching Kacy spin around looking for her spoon.

"You know what … I'll just get a new one." She announced to the two of them from the floor. "umm …" She looked around at the furniture.

"New you say?"

"Yep …"

"Couldn't tell." John said flatly.

The girl sat up straight. "Aw, really?" She tilted her head with a flattered face. She reached out and grabbed both John and Cameron's hands from her knees. "I'm so happy I could have such understanding people helping me through my time of need." She squeezed their fingers and got to her feet, wandering around behind them.

"Yeah, her time of need … it's not like we got anything better to do, like fight and kill twenty two other kids for people's enjoyment." John mumbled.

"What was that?"

"Kitchen, Try the Kitchen!" He called out to her.

"Oh yeah … I'll go … find it!" They heard her wander around a few more moments before the whooshing of automated doors signaled her disappearance.

Cameron turned to John. "The H-461 luxury hover bullet doesn't have a kitchen … just a freezer car." She sounded confused.

John sighed with a chuckle. "You know that, I know that … she doesn't" He smirked. Cameron tilted her head, a smile almost threatened to form before she turned away.

There was an awkward silence that filtered through the room. John continued to stare at her, even when he knew it probably was unhealthy socially for him to do so. His eyes lingered on her, as he observed every inch of her wondering eyes, her soft plumped lips, and beauty mark on her cheek. It was ridiculous to be doing this, knowing that she was going to have to kill him eventually, or he was going to have to do her in.

Could he?

"Why did you do that?"

While he spaced out, Cameron was back to him again, her eyes searching his. She was trying to read his thoughts, through body language from the look of it.

"Huh?" He stumbled back to reality.

"You volunteered. Your chances of survival are slim, slimmer than most years. Yet you volunteered." She blinked in confusion.

John was caught off guard by the question. This was by far the dumbest thing he'd ever done. How do you explain stupid? How could he bullshit those eyes, this girl? He did it to protect her, to make sure no one dragged her away again. Oh sure John, that's a great excuse, _"I was so distraught when the Thugs dragged you away, that I volunteered for the Hunger Games so that I could kill you?"_ What about the machine? He couldn't tell her about the machine either. This was a super-secret mission, he couldn't go telling girls he was in love with about super-secret … in love? Did he just think he was in love with her? No, he's not in love … he's got the whole 108th games stuck in his head, that's what's going on. His dad was in love, he's not in love. He's a concerned citizen … citizen?

"It just seemed like the right thing to do." He shrugged easily with a clear of his throat, avoiding her gaze now.

She didn't tear herself away from him. "Like attempting to charge the Peacekeepers in the meadow?" She asked.

The question hit a nerve, you don't get into those situations, make a life altering decision only to have someone throw that back at you. "I would've, had you not been so stupid, and let them take you." He said defensively.

"As stupid as being shot at by Peacekeepers?"

John rounded on her. "You were in trouble. I did what I had to, to rescue you. Would you have saved me?" He shot back at her.

Cameron frowned. "I did …" She said gently.

Their stare lasted only a moment, before it occurred to John how heavy this subject was. Would he do it again? His brain told him he had a machine to hunt, and these questions are exactly what are going to get him killed. But his gut feeling told him, that this was the real reason he was here, staring right at him, both literally and figuratively. That ignoring her now, and these feelings would get him killed in there, or worse haunt him till his dying day.

"_Don't do anything in there; you can't live with, out here." _

The whoosh of the doors interrupted them, the soft puff of feet on the floor, announced the arrival of someone. John quickly broke away from Cameron, but strangely the girl didn't, she was studying John with complete and utter interest.

"So … you're here. Congratulations on the free meal."

A new voice addressed them from behind. John and Cameron turned with interest, but didn't catch a face. The voice was female, deep and stern. She walked passed Cameron watching the windows. She was shorter than Cameron, slender, with toned arms, her hair was long and in black tussled curls. Her skin was milky and smooth looking, and her shadowed face was in a hard, humorless frown of seriousness, this woman obviously wasn't there to play. She wore dark jeans tucked into ankle tall combat grade Peacekeeper boots. Her upper body was in a wrap blouse, that was cut off at the midriff, her toned, flat belly on display.

"You're the new Mentor?" John asked flippantly, her appearance and how she came into the room rubbed John the wrong way.

"Cookie for you." She mocked sternly.

"Sorry, on a diet." He shot back.

"What's the use, enjoy the crap in here, it's not like you'll last long enough for it to go to your hips."

John smirked and leaned back in his seat. "I wouldn't put money on that. You'll find Cameron and I are as full of surprises as you are of shit, crony." John crossed his arms. It was obvious from the onset that this new mentor was assigned from the capitol- her demeanor, her want to be somewhere else, classic career disinterest pasted District 4.

The warrior looking woman made an amused noise at the sheer teenage arrogance dripping from his statement. "Alright tough guy …" She turned and walked toward them, but stopped. John's smirk melted away when she came into the light. It was a face he knew well, the blue streaked eyeliner, the haunting beauty of her face with the help of sad emerald eyes.

Sarah looked almost horrified to see John as he was shocked into silence to see her, his childhood obsession, his beacon of normality wherever he went.

Her voice reflected the terror that went straight through her.

"You're not supposed to be here!"


	3. Sarah

**Sarah**

"You're not supposed to be here!"

A strange empty silence flashed through the cabin of the moving train. No one said a word as all parties tried to catch up with the new District Twelve mentor's sudden outburst. Moreover John was trying to catch up on what exactly was going on.

One moment he was snarking off with the clearly former career, the next thing he knew, the new mentor was Sarah, his childhood obsession. At this first moment he was truly speechless; he had never thought in all his life he would ever meet Sarah, of all people. When he was a young kid he would never miss when she was on Capitol Television. Sometimes it was specials on different Hunger Games, a reunion show, where past winners - mostly careers- came on and talked about how honorable it was to volunteer and be privileged enough to compete for the glory of Panem. John had never bought that shit, not even as a boy. But what had always fascinated him was that Sarah touted the company line as well, but in her eyes, those sad emerald jewels, she didn't buy it as well.

John Reese had been from one side of Panem to the other, and in his day saw a lot of cruel and horrible things. But in those nights when everything was still, and the images of starving children and broken looks of helpless submission by their parents to the unwinnable life they lead, he always knew he could turn on the television and come home to Sarah being right on the screen. He would smile as she would talk and when she looked at the screen he could almost believe she was talking to him, actively trying to help him get over everything, to make him feel better.

Now all these years later there she was, looking at him, this time truly looking at him. So it would be his luck that the first time he ever got to meet the woman who he'd been in love with all his life, she would look at him with true terror in her eyes.

"Come again?" He cleared his throat. It was truly an out of body experience. Who was in control of his head right now?

The woman took a step closer, her eyes transfixed on him in complete absolute fear. Her terror slowly bled into him. The way she was looking at him, he felt like maybe someone was standing behind him with a knife or some nasty hairy beast was baring its teeth right behind him and he hadn't noticed.

"You're not supposed to be here! … Wha … What are you doing here?!" She snapped at him.

John was hardly paying attention, whipping around behind him just in case she was talking to someone else that he hadn't noticed. But there was no one there, just the door. He flipped around next to him to Cameron. The girl looked just as confused as he was, even more so … if that was possible.

"Me?" He asked. "What am I doing here?" He traded a frown with Cameron who found him the moment he looked to her absently for some help.

The raven-haired warrior woman took another step closer threatening penetration into his personal space. "Yes, What are you doing here?!" Now she looked plain enraged at him. He would admit fully that it was kind of scary, she intimidated him.

"I think it's pretty obvious, don't you?" He seemed unsure what she was getting at. Once again turning to Cameron, unsure why.

"Yes, quite." She confirmed with a nod, turning a puzzled face back to their mentor.

The woman rounded on Cameron. "No one asked you, did they?!" John had never heard such venom from a person to another at the first meeting. Cameron lowered her head respectively.

To this point John had been very confused about what this was all about. But the minute the woman spat at the girl, he felt the shock and awe of his childhood disappear, and a glare wrinkled his forehead.

"Now answer me!" Sarah demanded.

He got a troublemakers smirk. "Wanted a free meal." He snarked back.

Her eyes were on fire, she got closer to him, and her face was now so close to his that their noses almost touched. "You think this is a joke?!" She slammed her hands on his armrest.

John ground his teeth. "No, I don't think this is a Joke … I think you are!" He snapped at her. He felt a pain shoot through his chest when his sudden comment lightened her emerald eyes. He could see the deep hurt and critical damage it had on her.

But he didn't let up; he was in full defense mode. It was her aggressive nature, her attitude toward Cameron, and his subconscious knowledge to show no weakness or general judgment of his decision to volunteer. "Don't come in here barking at us, when we both know that you don't give a damn. You're here because Kogen assigned you here. Probably because you're as big a fuck up as you look! So they gave you District Twelve, did they? Well newsflash rich girl. We don't like you as much as you don't like us. So why don't you go take your ass somewhere else so we can die in peace!" As he snapped and snarled he stood backing her off. He could tell that his harsh words were killing her deep inside, and truth be told when this was over he was going crawl in a ball and cry for days.

The thirty-something snorted defensively through glassy eyes. "You don't know what you're talking about." She tried to chuckle, but she avoided his eyes.

"I guess we have that in common." He shot back.

Now she looked so frustrated she could cry. John wasn't sure what was going on. Why was she like this? Why come in here and yell at him, when they had never met? It would be one thing if Derek had come here barking at him, he could handle it. But why was this stranger, this childhood idol, riding him over this? An ultra-famous celebrity of the Capitol, victor, rose of her district, posters on the wall of every school kid … why? … why did she care so much?

She gritted her teeth. "This isn't a game!" She struck back.

"Funny, because it is called 'The Hunger GAMES'. Notice the word 'Games' don't you?" He wanted to hammer his own hand in punishment for being so vicious. "I guess when you're taught how to kill children all your life, there's no room for basic literacy is there?" He snarled like a junkyard dog at the woman. He could tell that she was a person who was just too slow to come out with the insults and snappy comebacks. She was an easy target.

She looked away from him, the verbal pounding showing. She looked angry, frustrated, and very hurt. He sized her up. He did what he had to to show he wasn't weak. Yet she had no idea how much he wanted to wrap his arms around her.

"Come on Cameron … Let's bounce." He didn't turn around. "Let's let the show monkey enjoy her dinner … god knows she's had a hard day dancing for the Capitol's amusement." He spat. He didn't linger long enough to see how she reacted to his parting comment. The truth being, he wasn't sure he could handle it emotionally.

He walked casually out of the room, memory serving him were Kacy had told them where their rooms were. He didn't stop till he was down the hall with the luxury car door closed. In the narrow space between the dining car and the sleeper cars John stopped and gave an emotional sigh. The dying light of the late afternoon glimmered in at an angle, illuminating the otherwise silent transitional compartment of the train.

He couldn't help it when he felt the tears come on. He had never been so nasty or mean to a person in his entire life. It was the flashpoint. He had been living in his own little world at this time yesterday. In the span of thirty hours, he had suddenly been thrown to the lions with no one to lean on. It had been a build up till this point - the danger, the unknowing, the secrets, the Rebellion … and death. Now, it had all caught up with the boy. All the anger and resentment coming out like a river on the woman inside the dining car, a woman he had loved once.

Suddenly John felt his age, a boy of fifteen, three weeks from sixteen, scared, alone, and overwhelmed. He buried his face in his hands. He cried, no sobs, no whimpers, just tears and hard breaths. He didn't care if it was weakness. After what happened with Sarah, he didn't even know who he was anymore.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, slender and unsure. He quickly snapped to attention at the foreign physical contact. He had forgotten that he had called for Cameron to come with him, which had been more of an off handed comment. But either way there she was, her hand outstretched resting on his shoulder, her eyes blank, but contorted enough to be construed as unsure sympathy.

"Oh … uh." He sniffed and cleared his throat trying to recompose himself.

She tilted her head. "You're crying?" John wasn't sure if that was a question or an observation.

"Well …" He started, clearing his throat again.

"Are you hurt?" She asked.

John seemed caught off guard. "No …" he replied.

The girl frowned. "But, I thought people cry when they're hurt?" She asked. The teen wasn't sure what she was asking. Had she never actually cried before in her entire life?

"It's uhh … it's been a long day that's all." He smirked despite a falling tear.

She tightened her cheek. "Is that why you thrashed our mentor?" She asked, focusing on the tear.

John would like to say it was part of the reason. But in reality he had been more confused than mad at Sarah for coming after him. It was only when she yelled at Cameron with such a vicious hate that he got into it with her. After that he went right at her, and only from there did it all pile on.

"Something like that." He said.

She reached a hand out and touched his cheek. His first reaction was to move away, but he couldn't find the reflex to. Her finger was slender and gentle as she captured his single tear on the side of the digit. She stared at it for the longest time.

"I'm sorry." She said looking up from the salty liquid.

John was still recovering from her touch. "What? Why?" He didn't understand what she was doing.

"I fear you've gotten dragged into something you don't fully understand." She captured his eyes. "And it was all for me." She confirmed.

He grew suspicious. "What are you talking about?" He screwed up his face.

"You joined this venture for me, did you not?" She asked.

John felt embarrassed, his cheeks flushed and he looked away a moment. Despite his reaction she lingered in his personal space.

John snapped his head back. "You're pretty vain, aren't you?" he glared.

She tilted her head. "Am I wrong?" She responded to his defensive nature.

He felt cornered. "When we're in the arena and those bloodthirsty animals have you surrounded … Do you expect me to come to your rescue?" He shot.

He hated how she suddenly looked so innocent, an angelic naivety, like she didn't understand. Was this her strategy? To play on his feelings?

"You have before." Her deadpan response was emotionless.

He pushed himself off the wall and advanced into her personal space, it had been an effort to push her out of his, but she stood her ground. They were very close.

"So what's the strategy? You get close to me, I protect you in there, and then what? When it's just the two of us, you slit my throat?" He asked.

Cameron searched his eyes. "It's seems like an effective strategy, doesn't it?" she asked.

Suddenly, John realized that she was turning it on him. Did she think that he was going to do the same thing to her? He didn't know the steps to this dance.

"It's not the way I fight …" He answered the lingering question. "But I'm not someone to be trifled with either." He replied.

"Neither am I?" She replied on his heels.

It occurred to him through the conversation that he had been underestimating his district partner. It was clear that she wasn't some wilting flower, waiting for her tender flesh to be ravished by wild animals. He had to admit that in this moment, seeing blank eyes void of emotion, that he felt a rush of fear run through him. She wasn't what she seemed.

"Found it!"

Their stare down was cut short by the reappearance of their escort, barefoot, armed with another silver spoon. She waved it victoriously at the two of them, oblivious to what was going on, or how close they were. Kacy sighed staring at the polished silverware.

"Isn't it a great feeling to find something, and somewhere you never expected?" She asked.

John didn't take his eyes off Cameron. "Yeah … finding something somewhere you never expected." He said darkly. Cameron said nothing back to his comment, she just tilted her head.

Kacy sighed and looked back and forth between the two teens. "Have you met your mentor?" She asked.

Cameron found the painted woman and nodded obediently. John just snorted. "She's quite a catch." He shot back.

"Oh isn't she? When they told me that SARAH was going to be a part of our team, I knew I just had to get this job." She sounded excited. "I mean she's a little rough around the edges … but she's a legend … everyone will be talking about us this year." She lifted the spoon to the ceiling as if it were the heavens, announcing the end of the sentence with a majestic tone.

In the pause that followed Cameron followed the woman's gaze to the ceiling inquisitively, while John just scoffed and shook his head in disinterest. He stuffed his hands into his leather jacket pockets and sighed in irritation.

"That's uh … that's great … look I'm going to head to my room for the evening … good night." He began walking away.

When he was gone the two females followed him with their gaze. "What a strange boy." The district escort scratched her pink wig with the silverware. She walked away, leaving Cameron by herself.

"Yes … strange indeed." She rubbed his tear between her fingers gently.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

**This was really short, because this is a bit of a feeler, to see if there's an audience out there for this story. Also my Beta insisted on me starting this up again. **

**So let me know how you liked it and if there's readership out there for it … to make Girl Scout Sniper happy.**


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